By SaharaReporters, New York
A report of an Ad-hoc committee of the Kaduna State House of Assembly’s released today has confirmed last week’s report by SaharaReports of the looting of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) funds, saying that about N560 million is “missing” in the implementation of the programme at the state level.
Our report, on June 11, stated that the funds were being looted by members of the House of Assembly and local government officials. The report of the House, however, says nothing about the involvement of the legislators.
Instead, the report described complete abuse of the process by the state government, and cast a vote of no confidence on the former Commissioner of Finance, Dr. John Ayuba, who is now the Commissioner of Water Resources. Ayuba, it said, frustrated all its efforts to ascertain how the funds were utilized.
The report revealed that an astounding N3.5 million naira was expended merely on inscribing “2012 SURE-P Kaduna State” on 700 tricycles, how Ayuba disregarded a directive of the implementation committee and processed the procurement of 40 units of Nissan Sunny taxis at N3.3 million naira each, instead of the price agreed by the implementation committee of N2.8 million each.
It also described as “worrisome and questionable” the presentation of the materials bought bearing 2013 instead of 2012, and recommended that it be reverted to the proper year.
With reference to the missing N560 million, the report said on Page 4, “No receipts for the months of January-March, 2012 and no mention was made with regards to the month of April, 2012. However, a lump sum of N560 million was said to have been received with no further details. All efforts by the implementation committee and the Ad-hoc committee to get actual records of expenditure of SURE-P funds for the year 2012 from Commissioner of Finance proved abortive.”
In our earlier story on June 11, we reported how members of the House of Assembly and Local Government Chairmen in the State were stealing and squandering SURE-P funds meant for projects, openly cutting deals and distributing the money among themselves.
SaharaReporters further reported that some citizens had petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission about the brazen crimes, but so far, the commission has said nothing.
Source: Sahara Reporters
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