*They can't intimidate me, he says
ABUJA — FEDERAL Capital Territory Minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, responding, yesterday, to his indictment, Wednesday, by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, dismissed it as a witch-hunt.
But he vowed that he would refuse to be intimidated by the Senate, declaring: “In the next few weeks you will understand many things that have been happening.”
The Senate committee had indicted the minister for alleged irregularities in the management of finances during his tenure as the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) and even his current duty post. Cited as his offence was his employment of two special assistants said to have been irregularly employed and paid.
According to the report, the two special assistants who graduated in the 90s were paid at least N9 million each last December. It recommended that the money be recovered.
But speaking yesterday in Abuja on his second clash with the Senate since his nomination as minister, Mallam el-Rufai said he had always expected the Senate to attack him since his allegation that the Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, and Senator Jonathan Zwingina demanded bribe from him to be confirmed.
He said: “I will not be accountable to any one but the president and I will keep on doing my job. Since my first engagement with the Senate, I know that for the next few years they will be trying to find something wrong with me. It’s ok for them to try and write their English but nobody can intimidate Nasir el-Rufai. We will continue to do our work and in the next few weeks you will understand many things that have been happenning.”
He said he had not read the full text of the Senate indictment but said that in any case he remained unmoved. He also said President Obasanjo had approved the Convention on Business Integrity to fight corruption in the country, saying: “Within 12 months of assigning this convention, every company that does business with us above N50 million must sign on to this convention.
“They must also agree that they must not offer bribe in the pursuit of contract and this is what is important about this, but anybody that wants to do business with FCT above a certain minimum must show that he is a member of this club which means he has undertaking that he will not offer bribe or any other form of inducement to any official whether public or private in connection with his business and should not permit any one to do so his behalf.
“It is an anti-bribery convention, but it is a bit more than that. It also requires you within your organisation to have transparent procedure for every thing to pick the best people to work with.”
