The Federal Government on Thursday said the recovered loots from corrupt individuals were not enough to stop the country from borrowing.

Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Vice President, Laolu Akande said this while speaking at the Fourth Presidential Economic Communications Workshop.

He said, “In the last two budgets, 2016 and 2017, there had always been a line that shows the estimate of how much we have to get as recovered funds, that is then put back into the budget as an income that would be used. I do not have the figures with me now, but each of our budgets, there is a figure that had been included to say this is how much we are hoping to be able to get from looted funds; we have done that in 2017 and in the 2018 budgets.

“When you compare the kind of money that we need with the money that we recovered, it would easily show why we are actually still needing loans. We have not been able to recover much as to prevent us from getting some of these concessionary loans.

“People, when they hear these figures, they think the money is enough. I think one of the highest figures in the 2016 or 2017 budget is N300 billion. But when you compare it with what we are trying to get which is $5.5 billion; you see that what we are recovering has not gotten to the point where it can actually prevent us from not taking the loans. Those loans are meant for infrastructure, which are very important.”