The Auditor-General, Mr. Samuel Ukura, had in August last year, stated that N183.7bn could not be accounted for by auditors who conducted a special check on the NDDC from 2008 to 2012 but the agency’s management instantly rushed to the Presidency to deny the allegation.
However, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Delta, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, told our correspondent in an exclusive interview that necessary arrangements had been perfected by his team to begin investigation into the alleged scam when the upper chamber of the National Assembly resumes next week.
Nwaoboshi specifically explained that his committee “had concluded plans to investigate the crisis between the NDDC and the office of the AGF, over the alleged misappropriation of N183bn by the NDDC.”
He said, “We have the list of abandoned road projects, we are also aware of the conflict between the office of the AGF and the NDDC regarding the N183bn that was allegedly misappropriated by the management of the agency although the NDDC is denying the allegations.”
The AGF had levelled the allegations after submitting three special reports to the National Assembly, in August last year and insisted that a lot of discrepancies were noticed in the NDDC’s account.
He, therefore, said that about N183.7bn was being expected to be refunded to the federation.
According to him, the outstanding sum included the N70.4bn unaccounted for from the mobilisation of various contractors that never reported to site, and the N5.8bn paid to contractors for projects not executed or abandoned.
Others are the N90.5bn spent on extra-budgetary expenditure without approval by legal authorities, while tax not deducted from contractors was put at N1.2bn.
But the management of the agency, through its sacked Managing Director, Mr. Dan Abia, immediately met with President Muhammadu Buhari and told him that the allegation was completely false.
Abia told Buhari that no money was missing while he also dissociated himself from issues of “contract splitting.”
He had said, “By the admission of the AGF, N180bn is not missing. The office of the AGF is a government agency. We shall engage the office and set the records straight. I said that even before the President that no N180bn is missing.”
But the office of the AGF, again, insisted that its audit report on the NDDC was accurate and maintained that the commission had a case to answer.
The office, in a statement by its Deputy Director, Media and Public Relations, Mr. Olawunmi Ogunmosunle, therefore, urged the NDDC or any other person dissatisfied with the report to take advantage of the opportunity to defend themselves before the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly.
The AGF’s office alleged that it took the NDDC 16 months to grant its auditors permission to commence the periodic checks beginning from December 9, 2011 to May 6, 2013.
The statement added, “Similarly, it took another 16 months and several reminders to the NDDC with effect from April 24, 2014 to August 12, 2015 before the final report was submitted to the National Assembly. The NDDC has yet to respond to the Special Periodic Checks.”
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