The House of Represen
tatives joint committee
on public accounts and industries, yesterday declared as illegal, the retransfer of the National Automotive Council (NAC) funds, amounting to N10.7 billion, without recourse to the National Assembly.
The House committee established that NAC funds were separately disbursed as loans to parastatals under the ministry of industries which they said was in violation of Section 10(3) of the law establishing NAC which req-uired that the council’s funds not be put to uses other than those of the council.
But the ministry of indu-stries, the Bank of Industries (BOI) and NAC, submitted that the funds were transf-erred with the approval of President Obasanjo and the Federal Executive Council (FEC), to which the lawm-akers insisted was contem-ptuous of the law.
Members of panel on the funds suspected to have been misapplied drilled the minister of industries, Alhaji Magaji Mohammed, the executive secretary of NAC, Engineer Anthony Igwe and the leadership of the BOI.
In their separate submis-sions, the industries comm-ittee chairman and that of public accounts, Hon. Olu-wole Adeyemi, maintained that information available to the committees showed that the total amount that flowed into NAC account from levies up to April 26, 2004 stood at N12,387,090,266.03 while a total outflow stood at N10,720,575,574, leaving a balance of N1,666,514,692.03.
The panel established that N10,720,572,574 was illegally disbursed as loans to parastatals, and the break-down showed that the BOI received N4,524,032,829 billion; National Fertiliser Company (NAFCON) got N3,725,000,000; STEYR rece-ived N2,361,042,745 while NAC also spent N110,500,000 million.
The disbursements, the lawmakers said, contravened Section 9(3) of Decree 84 of 1993 which specified how the funds were to be applied and Section 10(3) which states that the funds shall not be applied other than for the purposes of the council.
The disbursements wh-ich were without the backing of the National Assembly, the panel said, “were clearly unlawful, illegal and incon-sistent with the rule of law principle, and this action cert-ainly flies against the accou-ntability and transparency posture of the federal gove-rnment”.
The industries minister, Alhaji Magaji Mohammed, however responded that the monies were not missing but were given out to help resu-scitate ailing industries, adding also that President Obasanjo was aware of the disbursements.
TO NEXT NEWS PAGE...
|
|
