Candidates For December 12 Presidential Elections Want To Recover Looted Funds

Candidates for December 12 presidential elections raced to employ the obsession with the recovery of the funds that were looted by businessmen of what is known as the “mafia system”, but the way to recover them varied from one candidate to another.

The first candidate who spoke about this issue was Ali Benflis, the candidate of Talaie Al Houriat party (Vanguards of Liberties Party), who elaborated a clear strategy for tracking and recovering the looted funds, because he is the first candidate to decide whether the majority of the stolen funds are in Algeria, and those that were smuggled abroad have set a series of measures to recover them.

Among these measures, in the opinion of the former Prime Minister, diplomatic action, through the activation of international conventions against corruption, and the exploitation of bilateral relationships in order to achieve this, and he intends to send judges to these countries, to know their legislation, so that diplomacy can be used in dealing with the covert on this money.

Benflis also plans to involve the United Nations Observatory, which helps affected countries to recover looted funds, and the use of law firms, which are specialized in the ways to recover looted funds.

The second most obvious recipe for solving the problem of looted funds is that it included in the program of the candidate of the “National Construction Movement”, Abdelkader Bengrina, and resorted to by some countries that have suffered from the phenomenon of corruption, where he said that he would present to those accused of stealing the money of Algerians to return of looted funds in return for their freedom, but this option would subject to the consent of the Algerians in a referendum.

“I will question the Algerians between keeping corrupt in prison on the charges that they are proven to and making reconciliation with them on the condition of returning the looted money. If the people decide to keep them in prison for life, I will comply with this decision”, but he estimated that the stay of corrupt in prison is useless: “There is no point in keeping corrupt in prison in exchange for the loss of a budget of more than $ 200 billion over the Algerian people”.

This amount remains, according to Bengrina, sufficient to ensure the state’s management for the next three years in terms of processing and investment.

The third candidate who showed great interest in this case was Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who said he knew where the looted money is kept, but did not explain the mechanisms and details of recovery, and re-introduced his project, which many believe to have caused him great problems with the gang system, before more than two years after the decision to separate money from politics.

Tebboune’s talk about his knowledge of the location of the looted funds sparked controversy over social networks, where activists demanded that he should reveal where the money was hidden, and even called on the justice services to move in order to obtain information from the former prime minister that would help them activate war on corrupts.

The other two candidates, Ezzeddine Mihoubi and Abdelaziz Belaid, spoke about the electoral program and efforts to recover the looted funds, but they have not yet elaborated on the mechanisms for the recovery of these funds.