It has been revealed that 70 to 75 per cent of Nigeria’s national budget is lost to corrupt practices.
The Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals of Nigeria (CIFIPN) made the revelation on Sunday, saying the corruption affects all levels of governance in the country.
CIFIPN president, Dr Enape Victoria Ayishetu, said this at a press briefing in Abuja on Sunday.
She said the loopholes would continue if the right mechanisms and cogent interventionist measures were not put in place to check the trend.
She noted that brilliant budget ideas hardly translate to the actual implementation of the government’s laudable expenditure framework.
Ayushetu attributed this to “well-orchestrated systemic and endemic monumental corruption of the highest proportion.”
She said the larger chunk of Nigeria’s resources “always end up as products of fraud, corruption and cybercrime. This is a travesty of rational realism as the country cannot justify how the huge sums, we see every year in the national budget are not often matched with a commensurate measure of realistic budget performance.”
She said fraud, corruption and cybercrimes “thrive” in Nigeria owing to a lack of investigation and prosecution of the crimes.
She urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Professionals Bill 2021.
According to her, forensic investigation is vital for the restoration of the nation’s economy and the fight against fraud, corruption and cybercrime.
