*Money paid irregularly to 2 assistants to be recovered
ABUJA —THE Senate adopted, yesterday, the report of its Committee on Public Accounts, indicting the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, of irregularity in the management of finances during his tenure as Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), and his current post.
The report which covers activities of the committee in the last one year also recommended direct allocation of funds to Police commands across the country as a way of eliminating constraints in the channelling of funds to Police formations. The committee's report presented to the Senate by its chairman, Mr Mamman Ali, similarly indicted some government agencies and government contractors, some of whom were told to refund various sums to government.
Briefing newsmen at the end of the session, Senator Ali poured encomiums on President Olusegun Obasanjo, under whose name several government officials including el-Rufai, he said, had hidden to perpetuate finanABUJA —THE Senate adopted, yesterday, the report of its Committee on Public Accounts, indicting the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, of irregularity in the management of finances during his tenure as Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), and his current post.
The report which covers activities of the committee in the last one year also recommended direct allocation of funds to Police commands across the country as a way of eliminating constraints in the channelling of funds to Police formations. The committee's report presented to the Senate by its chairman, Mr Mamman Ali, similarly indicted some government agencies and government contractors, some of whom were told to refund various sums to government.
Briefing newsmen at the end of the session, Senator Ali poured encomiums on President Olusegun Obasanjo, under whose name several government officials including el-Rufai, he said, had hidden to perpetuate financial malfeasances. The indictment of Mallam el-Rufai for his activities in the FCT was in respect of the employment of two special assistants who the committee observed were irregularly employed and paid.
According to the report, the two assistants who graduated in the nineties were paid at least N9 million each in the month of December 2003. The committee's recommendation directing the “Accounting Officer of the MFCT to recover all money irregularly paid to the two special assistants of the minister and submit treasury receipts to that effect to the AGF within four weeks,” was unanimously accepted by the Senate.
The committee's report which alleged fraud in the BPE accounts also found the minister culpable of concealing information concerning the accounts of the BPE where he worked before his ministerial appointment through his alleged refusal to sign the 2002 accounts of the government agency.
“Since the former DG during whose tenure the accounts were audited and reported has refused to take responsibility by endorsing the report, by law, neither the AGF nor the PAC can act on it. This attitude can be interpreted as an attempt to conceal their activities from the board and committee scrutiny,” the committee said.
Alluding to mal-practices in the management of the BPE accounts during el-Rufai’s tenure, the report continued: "In the process of reviewing the report, certain observations of the external auditors indicated improper financial dealings by management. The committee gave the external auditors the opportunity to review the report and amend or modify it according to their professional judgment. They opted to stand by their assertions/comments.”
The committee’s findings on the Police financial system read: “One discovery was the issue of under-funding as well as negative effect of over-centralised disbursement system. We noted that there should be more decentralisation to enhance operational effectiveness and efficiency.”
Following this finding, the Senate recommended to the executive arm to ensure that all Police commands receive their funds directly from the Federal Government. Briefing newsmen at the end of the session, Senator Ali commended President Obasanjo for his transparency and particularly for not influencing the committee’s scrutiny of government accounts. He said several government officials had dropped the name of the president to perpetuate illegality, but which in all cases subsequently turned out to be false.
