Senate to probe environmental contract executed in Boko Haram enclave

The committee directed the leadership of the ministry to institute a probe into the issue and forward their findings to it before the 2014 budget it submitted would be approved.Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mr. Taiye Haruna, had listed the Bama road construction which also included drainage work and erosion control as one of the […]

The committee directed the leadership of the ministry to institute a probe into the issue and forward their findings to it before the 2014 budget it submitted would be approved.
Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mr. Taiye Haruna, had listed the Bama road construction which also included drainage work and erosion control as one of the 20 other constituency/intervention projects at different stages of execution which the sum of N1.4bn has been paid.
Representing the minister, Mrs Lawrencia Labaran Mallam, the permanent secretary said so when the senate committee, led by the Chairman, Senator Bukola Saraki, went to the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja on oversight functions.
Haruna had drawn the anger of members of the committee when he claimed that his ministry has effectively implemented all the 20 constituency/intervention projects under its supervision.
A member of the committee, Senator Boluwaji Kunlere, immediately drew the attention of the permanent secretary to the fact that there was no way any contractor could execute any project in Bama between July 2013 and now, when the area had been occupied by the Boko Haram insurgents.
Kunlere, who is also a member of the Senate Committee on Security and Intelligence, alleged that the claims of the contractors were fraudulent because it was difficult for his team led by heavily armed military personnel, to gain access to the area when they went there on oversight functions within the same period.
The permanent secretary referred the issue to a director in charge of the project who justified the N21m paid to the contractors when he said that convincing evidences including documents and pictures were presented to him.
Haruna, however, told the committee that the N1.4bn appropriated to the ministry for constituency projects was disbursed to the various contractors that handled the projects.
He said his ministry generated N267m as Internal Generated Revenue, last year, explaining that given an enabling environment to operate, it could generate over N1 billion.
The committee members, however, expressed their dissatisfaction over the presentation of Haruna, threatening to recommend zero allocation to the ministry if its officials failed to convince them that money appropriated were being effectively utilised.
Vice Chairman of the committee, Senator Ben Ayade, also faulted the payment of N100 million to the consultancy firms hired by the ministry to carry out studies on its N3.7 bn Great Green Wall project aimed at controlling desertification in some areas of the country.
He said rather than spending the whooping sum to buy information which was always available online, the ministry should have spent to execute physical projects, like tree planting, to check desert encroachment.
Rounding off his committee’s observation,  Saraki said: “The documents presented to us by the permanent secretary as completed projects was different from the reality on ground at the various project sites.
“That further showed why it had taken you so long to reply our letters. This has given us serious concern and, obviously, there is crisis, there is the issue of competency, commitment and seriousness. It has to change.”
He observed that notwithstanding the fact that the ministry’s capital project was reduced from N12bn in 2012, to N9bn last year and  further reduced to N6bn in 2014, the amount involved was still plenty.
He noted that Nigerians were aware that projects in their constituencies were not being executed and they know that money is being released.
He added: “I am not ready to put my name and signature in such document again, this year, except there is a change. This shows that it is either that we were deceiving them or there is a problem of fraudulent malpractice going on.
“I think this ministry really needs to address all these issues. It is getting to that stage. We have gone through a number of projects today and it’s the same story.
“There is a case of Borno State where any Nigerian would tell you that there is no access to the place,  how then can a contractor now tell us that he is working there and deserve to be paid N21m?”