World Bank Welcomes Buhari’s Move to Probe Past Corrupt Practices

The World Bank Chief Economist for Africa, Mr. Francisco Ferreira, on Monday welcomed the resolve of Nigeria’s President-elect, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), to visit past corrupt practices, stressing that it would help strengthen public institutions and promote cleanliness in politics and management of public resources.

Answering questions from journalists across sub-Saharan Africa via video-conferencing from Washington on the occasion of the launch of Africa’s Pulse, a bi-annual World Bank Group analysis of the issues shaping Africa’s economic prospects, he said the current emphasis of the “elected government to look at what happened in the past hopefully would have consequences for the future.”
According to him, such consequences would help institutions become stronger, while the culture of impunity is eliminated, allowing for more resources to be committed to the betterment of the poor.

Specifically, he said ridding the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of alleged corruption would be a major achievement for the incoming government.

Noting that tackling past corruption won’t be a distraction for the incoming regime, he said:”I think it’s very well spent time because institutions are built in part on norms and one norm that needs to be change is the norm of impunity. I am from Brazil myself so I am also used to a country where people could be corrupt and escape justice. And that just teach the people to keep doing it.”

He said:”I think the current emphasis of the elected government to look at what happened in the past hopefully would have consequences for the future. And those consequence for the future is that institutions would be stronger, hands would be cleaner and people have to sense that if they steal billions of dollars from NNPC: people have alleged in the past that there be been major corruption scandals there-if that stops, then that could have very high returns in terms of the money staying around and being spent on education, health, roads and power and electricity that the poor people in Nigeria and across the country need. (Thisday)