Scandal: Buhari’s Amnesty Coordinator Blows N48Billion In Five Months
Status Report of the Presidential Amnesty Programme at the Senate today,
senators have indicated their disapproval of the over N48 billion
purportedly spent by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s coordinator of the
programme, Brig-Gen. Paul Boro (rtd), since he assumed office last July.
The senators, who preferred not to be named, were particularly concerned
over Boro’s purchase of official vehicles for his office for over N157
million as well as the huge sums of money purported to have been expended
on the training of ex-militants between November and December last year.
The expenditure, which according to the senators, was listed in the
annual status report of the Amnesty Office sent to the Senate Committees
on Niger Delta and Public Procurement, have made nonsense of the federal
government’s efforts at belt tightening measures, arising from the
nation’s dwindling earnings from crude oil.
The annual report, which the two Senate committees would review along
with the office’s 2016 budget today, said the senators, indicated that
Boro who took over from Hon. Kingsley Kuku as Presidential Adviser on the
Amnesty Programme under the current administration, in just five months
awarded contracts worth about N48 billion.
Describing most of the contracts awarded by Boro as “mostly nebulous or
frivolous”, the senators were particularly irked that at a time Buhari had
castigated the National Assembly for its proposal to buy official cars for
senators and members of the House of Representatives, the Amnesty Office
coordinator, who is just an appointee of the president, had since acquired
as his official car, an armoured Lexus LX 570 Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV)
with communications equipment for VIP movement.
The exotic official car was acquired from Wada Autos Limited at the
princely sum of N55 million and full payment has since been made by the
Amnesty Office.
“The president claims to be fighting corruption while his aides are
already swimming in corruption. Can you imagine a Special Adviser using a
bullet proof Lexus car worth N55 million as an official car at a time the
president is trying to stop us from buying our own official cars worth
about N5 million each? So what happened to the monetisation policy of the
federal government?” queried an irate senator, who is a member of the
Senate Committee on Niger Delta.
The report before the two Senate committees and sighted by THISDAY also
indicated that Boro had further acquired for his office from Globe Motors
Limited, the following cars: one Toyota Land Cruiser VX V8 at the cost of
N25.85 million; four Toyota Camry 3.5L V6 cars and four Toyota Hilux 4WD
buses at the total sum of N75.35 million. Globe Motors has since been
paid fully the sum.
Some of the senators complained that a thorough analysis of contract
documents attached to the report showed that at a time Nigeria is
experiencing perhaps its worst economic downturn in recent times,
Buhari’s adviser on the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme appears only
concerned about awarding “frivolous” contracts.
“We expected him to restructure the budget he inherited from his
predecessor at the Amnesty Office to fit into current economic realities
and in line with the anti-corruption crusade of President Buhari.
Unfortunately Boro is just spending recklessly,” lamented another senator
who did not want to be named.
Credible sources at the Amnesty Office, however, confided in THISDAY that
Boro began the contract awards in November 2015 apparently to beat the
December 31 deadline for the return of unspent monies to the treasury, as
stipulated by the extant financial regulations in Nigeria.
The nation’s financial regulations stipulate that unspent appropriated
funds be returned to the treasury after December 31 every year. However,
the federal government made exemptions for the funding of capital
projects to continue till March 2016.
Latching on to the need to “empower” already trained Niger Delta
ex-agitators, THISDAY sources claimed that some of the contracts did not
follow established guidelines for awards.
Said a source: “In several instances, the same contractors used by the
former administration of Kingsley Kuku, who already had due clearance
from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) were rushed in to handle the
so-called empowerment contracts.”
According to an angry senator, the contract awards occurred in spite of
the fact that several of the Amnesty Programme’s trainees in universities
abroad were either stranded or had been repatriated due to their inability
to meet with their financial obligations to their schools.
The senator said his investigations had revealed that under the guise
that there was no money to pay the ex-militants’ tuition and in-training
allowances, Boro had ordered the students in universities in the UK,
United States of America, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Russia, the
Philippines, Belarus and elsewhere abroad, to return to Nigeria.
“Several of them have since returned and are on the verge of being placed
in Nigerian universities to continue their education. The Amnesty Office
cannot afford to deploy or maintain delegates offshore anymore,” he quoted
a senior official of the Education Department of the Amnesty Office as
saying.
The senator said officials of the Amnesty Office told him that N510
million was paid to an institution, Westerfield Colleges, to prepare 150
students for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
This transaction, according to him, stipulated that over a period
spanning just two months, Westerfield Colleges would prepare the students
for the UTME organised by JAMB at a cost of N3.4 million per delegate.
“The same Boro who has been telling Nigerians that the Amnesty Office does
not have money to fund the education of students abroad is the one
awarding a contract worth N510 million to an institution to organise JAMB
classes for fresh students. This is really very silly and embarrassing,”
he said.
Even more curious, he claimed, was the fact that the payment of the N510
million by the Amnesty Office was not treated as a contract, hence no
award letter was issued to Westerfield.
Rather, the senator further claimed, Boro in glaring breach of the
Procurement Act and other extant financial regulations of the federal
government, ordered that the payment to Westerfield be passed off as a
direct payment to a school and students.
Efforts to reach Boro and his media consultant, Mr. Owei Lakemfa, failed,
as neither of them responded to calls to their mobile phones. A text sent
to Lakemfa’s phone was also not replied.
ThisDay
No comments:
Post a Comment