By Kwame Buist
LONDON (IDN) – Of the estimated 20-40 billion dollars stolen annually from developing countries and hidden abroad every year, a small proportion is sometimes successfully confiscated and returned to the country it came from.
However, where institutions of accountability do not work well, this poses a complex problem: how to make sure that the money is not embezzled again, and actually benefits the real victims of corruption – the ordinary people whose state finances were plundered.
Take one case, Nigeria, where plans are under way to distribute 322 million dollars recovered in Switzerland from the late General Sani Abacha, the country’s former military ruler who is suspected of looting between three and five billion dollars in public money.