BREAKING NEWS: World Bank supports Buhari to investigate NNPC, others

News reaching firstclass newsline says that The World Bank is in
support of President-elect, Maj. Gen. Mohammadu Buhari(retd.), to
investigate the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation over
allegations of missing funds.
Speaking during a video conferencing from Washington to journalists
from across Africa on the release of the bank's analysis of issues
shaping Africa titled 'Africa's Pulse', top officials of the bank also
lauded President Goodluck Jonathan for exhibiting political maturity
after his defeat in the recent presidential election.
Answering questions from journalists, World Bank's Chief Economist for
Africa, Mr. Francisco Ferreira, said looking into financial record of
the country, especially into allegation of corruption at the NNPC,
would check impunity and build public institutions in the future.
He said, "One norm that has to 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. That keeps the people to keep doing it.
"So the current stand of the government-elect to look into what
happened in the past hopefully will have consequences for the future.
And those consequences will be that institutions will be stronger;
norms will be cleaner and people will not have to steal millions of
dollars from Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
"People have alleged in the past that there had been major corruption
scandals there. If that stops, then that will have very high returns
in terms of the money staying around to be spent on education, health,
roads and power that the poor people in Nigeria across the country
need.
"So my sense is that it will be good to promote cleanliness in politics."
Answering another question on some other African countries that have
elections between 2015 and 2017, Ferreira said there was no need to be
afraid that the fear of elections would drive away investments from
the region.
Firstclassnewsline.net