The EFCC’s Zonal Head, Ibadan, Akaninyene Ezima, said this in a letter of invitation sent to the Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State, CSCEOS.

According to the EFCC’s letter of invitation made available to our correspondent in Osogbo on Sunday by the Chairman of CSCEOS, Sulaiman Adeniyi, the anti-corruption agency invited the group to come and clarify some areas in the petition against the governor.

The EFCC’s letter, dated May 13, 2016, with reference No: CR: 3000/EFCC/IB/T.B/VOL.1/79 was titled, “Investigation Activities: Acknowledgement/Invitation letter.”

The invitation letter read, “This is to acknowledge the receipt of your petition dated April 4, 2016, captioned Report of Illegal Diversion of 30 Local Governments’ monthly allocations by the Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola.

“Why Civil Societies Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State is calling for investigation and stoppage of Releasing of Local Government monthly allocations to Osun State through Mr. Rauf Aregbesola and to inform you that investigation has commenced.

“In view of the above, you are hereby requested to report to the EFCC Zonal Office at No.16 Revd. Oyebode Crescent, Iyaganku, G.R.A., Ibadan, for an interview with the undersigned through the Head, Team B, on May 17, 2016, at 10am prompt.”

The governor and some of his aides were accused of diverting LG allocations by the human rights group in a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari.

The group had claimed that the governor suspended democratic structure in the councils and had mismanaged funds allocated to them.

The CSCEOS’s petition read in part, “To affirm this illegality and unconstitutionality, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola suspended the democratic system in the constitutionally recognised 30 Local Government Areas of Osun State by appointing the grade level 14 local government staff as ‘council managers’ to man the council areas of the state instead of ‘democratically-elected chairmen and councilors’ as stipulated in Section 7(1) of the amended 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in order to give Aregbesola a leeway in the criminal diversion of local government funds.

“That the Federal Government, the National Assembly and its anti-graft agencies should investigate the acclaimed road projects embarked upon by Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola on behalf of the local government areas of the state without following the due process of the Public Procurement Act.

“The violation of all due process in managing the public finances of Osun State by Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola has been seriously impacting negatively on the lives of the state masses including the state and local government local workers with their retirees alike.”

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Giving his remark during the plenary after the passage of the 2016 Appropriation Bill by the Senate in Abuja, the Senate President also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure an effective implementation of the budget, while also calling on the President to ensure an early presentation of the next year appropriation bill to the National Assembly.

He also pledged that the Senate would immediately commence the amendment of the Public Procurement Bill currently before the National Assembly as a way of aiding the effective implementation of the budget.

A statement by the Special Assistant to the Senate President on Print Media, Chuks Okocha, quoted Saraki as saying that “The budget reflects efficient and equitable allocation of resources to reduce the challenges that we are all aware of. This budget is a product of bipartisan engagement, commitment and patriotism.

“It gives me great joy to commend and appreciate all the efforts that all of you, my colleagues, have put in. It is the duty of the Executive arm to ensure full implementation of this budget as part of the campaign to bring succuor to our people. While implementing it, we charge the Executive to also consider the need to support locally produced goods in order to help our economy.

“We have all seen the earlier hiccups in the beginning of the budget and we hope that by the time we are preparing the 2017 budget, the Ministries, Departments and Agencies and the Budget Office would improve their level of interaction.

“We also hope that government itself would bring the budget much earlier to give ample time for the legislature to do its job. It is very important that we do this.

“I will also thank the Appropriation Committee and, of course, we have all noted the areas of omission and I hope the Executive will be able to address the different areas that we talked about.

“I also particularly observed that we have made an effort to reduce the size of the budget, in our own view, to reduce our deficit and also reduce our level of borrowing and as much as possible we all want a budget that is sustainable.

“We have played our part; the different committees should do their job now in the area of oversight to ensure that we have a budget that is fully implementable.

“Nigerians have been waiting for us to pass the budget; I think at this time too, the implementing agencies should ensure that they get to work quickly in implementing the budget. We on our part have one or two bills to consider like the Public Procurement Act so as to assist with easy implementation of the budget.”

He commended the Senators for a job well done, despite the earlier hiccups encountered when the 2016 Appropriation Bill was presented last year.

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Saraki, while answering questions from Senate Correspondents after commissioning the newly upgraded and refurbished Senate Press Centre at the National Assembly in Abuja, said the eighth Senate will focus attention on the revenue generating areas and to ensure that all leakages are blocked.

The Senate President stated that though the 2016 budget proposal is ambitious but it can be achieved if all that is necessary to make it work is put in place.

When asked if the 2016 budget is implementable in view of the dwindling price of crude oil at the international market, Saraki said: “I think this is one of the reasons why we are having the MDAs defend their proposals before the Committees to be able to test some of the scenarios and some of the assumptions, particularly on the revenue side. if you look at the revenue, out of about N3.8trillion, N3trillion is coming from non-oil and independent revenue.

“The success of the budget, in my own view is less on the benchmark. It is more on those two items – non-oil revenue and independent revenue – and that is why we directed our Committee on Finance and other relevant Committees to really scrutinize the revenue side.

“Even the Senate leadership intends to also engage with the ministries as well to really check those two lines, because that is really where the questions come on whether it is achievable. Before we put our signature to it, we need to be sure that those funds are there.

“I believe they are ambitious but it is a good sign, because it begins to make us less dependent on oil. Because if N830billion is coming from oil revenue and it is only 23%. So, even if the price of oil goes down or up, we are not really so much vulnerable than that of the time oil revenue was accounting for 70 of our revenue. From that point of view, I believe that once we can do that, it is achievable,” he said.

The Senate President also advised the executive to put a proper plan in place for implementing the budget now that the National Assembly is working to pass it in record time.

He said the National Assembly would soon amend the Public Procurement Act to facilitate quick implementation of the budget.

“But also talking about being achievable or implementable, already, some of the things we are going to look at and which we are going to advise the executive on is that while we are working on the budget now, they too should also start making a plan on how to implement the budget because what tends to happen is that even after we have passed a budget, the administration or its bureaucracy sometimes makes the budget difficult to be realisable.

“And two areas: one is looking at the procurement process and it is very likely that we will need to come out with an amendment bill as regards to certain areas of the procurement law. That is something that we are likely to come out with very soon. People are looking at that now to see again how we can assist the executive to see that the budget is implementable,” he said.

On the need for transparency and openness in the National Assembly budget, Saraki said: “On the issue of National Assembly, I think I’ve kept on repeating this many times. If you remember, even during the time the leadership was constituted, one of the issues that came forward was that we will have an open and transparent Eight Senate and I still want to be held to that.

“Also during this process, of course, National Assembly budget too will also be debated and by the time the final document is out, I can assure you that we are going to move away from the time of one line item for the National Assembly to a National Assembly where there will be a break down according to different sections of the institution.”

While commenting on the remodeled and refurbished Senate Press Centre, Saraki said the 8th Senate is poised to leave a good legacy behind in all aspects of the National Assembly.

He said: “It (upgraded Senate Press Centre) signifies a commitment that we all see that in the Eight Senate, we will ensure that every aspect, we are poised to do things differently. We will try and improve on what we met and I hope by the time we finish our tenure, we would have left the Senate better than we met it.”

Earlier, Chairman Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi said the Press Centre was refurbished to create a befitting working environment for journalists reporting the activities of the Senate.

Abdullahi said “What we have done here with your magnanimous support, we have turned this place around so that when we come here to speak to Nigerians about the Senate, let Nigerians see that the environment we are doing it is befitting of that institution.”

In his response, Vice Chairman of the Senate Press Corps, Shagari Sumbo thanked the leadership of the Senate for improving on the Senate Press Centre and making it more conducive for the Correspondents to carry out their assignments.

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The Director of Media and Strategy of the PDP in the state, Diran Odeyemi, said this in a statement in Osogbo on Sunday.

The party accused the governor of jerking up the contract sum in order to allegedly embezzle the bailout loan the state got from the Central Bank of Nigeria while workers in the employ of the state were languishing as a result of unpaid salaries.

The PDP called on President Muhammadu Buhari to beam its searchlight on the financial activities in Osun State, especially the airport project.

The statement partly read, “We are aware that Governor Aregbesola on the 8th of January this year through an award letter with reference number SP/S96/1/vi/348 re-awarded the airport contract to the same contractor and a payment of N472m was paid as take off.

“The same company had earlier been paid N2.7bn for the same project without any serious work done on the project.

“We are calling on the President and anti-graft agencies to send a secret team to the site of the so-called Moshood Abiola International Airport, Ido Osun, to confirm what the government and the Air force company had done with the N2.7bn taken from the purse of the state on the 14th of December 2012.

“Of the amount, N2.5bn was sourced as a loan from Sterling Bank repayable monthly at N100m from Sure-P funds. That loan is now part of the N88bn restructured for the state by the Central Bank for repayment till the year 2034.

“The latest review of the contract is a brazen attempt to misappropriate funds, including the bailout loan meant to pay hungry civil servants, lecturers and medical doctors.”

The PDP accused the governor of running the affairs of the state as a sole administrator, adding that the reawarding the contract was in clear violation of the Public Procurement Act.

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Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, who announced Saratu Umar’s sack, said the President approved the appointment of Uju Aisha Hassan-Baba as her replacement.

The new Executive Secretary/Chief Executive had served previously as Director-General, Legal Aid Council of Nigeria, Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice in Anambra State and Director, Legal Services, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment.

Although no reason was given for the decision to relieve Umar of her appointment, those familiar with goings-on in the agency said that Umar’s sack may have been engineered by the several demands for her sack by the agency’s staff.

The NIPC Staff Union had accused her of fraud, incompetence and high-handedness, leading to the setting up of a panel set up by the Federal Government to investigate the allegations.

The NIPC Staff Union had last week said in a statement issued in Abuja and signed by its Chairman, Ahmad Isah Ghondi that “Our findings have indicated that the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Ms. Saratu Umar, has violated so many provisions of the Act in awarding contract to her cronies and has been running the Commission as a private entity.

“The Executive Secretary since her assumption of office a year ago has never advertised for bids as a pre-requisite for all contracts which is in violation of section 19(a) and section 16(1) of the Public Procurement Act.

“She has currently hand-picked and engaged the services of five Consultants which was not advertised for public bidding. In contravention of section 21 of the Public Procurement Act, she has refused to constitute a Procurement Planning Committee.

“The NIPC boss has failed in her one year administration of the Commission to obtain ‘No objection’ certificates which are normally issued prior to award of contracts and payments. This is in contravention of section 16 (1) and (4) of the Public Procurement Act.

“In her determined efforts to thrive in illegality, Ms. Saratu Umar, has put together an illegal Tenders Board which comprised of only two directors and other subordinate staff and completely sidelined other Directors who are still staff of the Commission. This illegal Tenders Board recently approved a Contract of N35 million for refurnishing of her office.

“The engagement of Consultancies and Contracts that is valued at millions of naira are done without any legal documentation, contract or agreements. It is worthy of note that under section 20(2) of the Public Procurement Act, the Chief Executive Officer is to be held liable in person for the breach and contravention of this Act, whether or not such breach was carried out by her or her subordinates.”

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The Federal Ministry of Works has been dragged before an Abuja Federal High Court over the propriety of the N209.7 million contract for advanced integrity test on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos.

The ministry had contracted an engineering consulting company, Icecon Nigeria Limited, to execute the project but two under-water engineering firms, the Nigerian Submarine Divers Limited and TGP Projects Limited  have jointly asked the court to set aside the contract on the grounds that it did not comply with the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.

The two firms sued the Federal Ministry of Works alongside the contractor, Icecon Nigeria Limited, and the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and urged the court to declare that the award of the contract without compliance with the provisions of the PPA was unlawful, invalid, void and unconstitutional.

They also asked the court for a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from releasing any money or logistics or carrying out or continuing to carry out any integrity test whatsoever on the bridge.

In an affidavit in support of their motion on notice, Nigerian Submarine Divers Limited and TGP Projects Limited informed the court that the award of the contract was a waste of taxpayers’ money because they (plaintiffs) had earlier been commissioned to undertake a similar job on the bridge.

According to them, the first plaintiff, Nigerian Submarine Divers Limited, was awarded the contract for underwater inspection of the Eko and Third Mainland bridges in Lagos by the Ministry of Works in 2011.

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