The House of Representatives Minority Caucus has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately investigate the suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Bala-Usman, over alleged looting of over N165 billion, as well as other diverted funds, under her management.
In a statement titled, ‘NPA Looting: Reps Minority Caucus Asks EFCC to Investigate Bala-Usman,’ issued on Monday by the Minority Leader of the House, Ndudi Elumelu, the caucus said the administration of the ruling All Progressives Congress had crippled the nation’s economy and brought untold hardships to Nigerians.
Elumelu said, “It is a shame that a party that came to power with the promise of fight corruption, build the economy, and fight insecurity has ended up destroying whatever gains that were made before it came to power.
“The minority caucus in the House of Representatives is alarmed by the alleged looting of over N165bn operating surplus as well as other diverted funds running into billions of naira, by top officials of the Nigerian Port Authority.”
The opposition lawmakers, therefore, demanded a “more drastic step by anti-graft agencies to recover the stolen funds as well as prosecute all involved in the looting spree.”
The statement read in part, “Our caucus holds that the mere suspension of the indicted Managing Director of the NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman, and the resort to an administrative panel of enquiry even after the report by the supervising Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, exposed an unremitted and possibly diverted operating surplus of N165bn, amounts to romancing and perfuming corruption by the APC-led Federal Government.
“The minority caucus also believes that the recourse to an administrative instead of a full-scale criminal investigation can only serve as decoy to shield some other APC government officials involved in the looting spree at NPA and other affiliated agencies in the transport sector.
“This is because, apart from the unremitted N165bn cited by the minister, other documents and reports from the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation had also uncovered several sleaze, including unremitted deduction to Federal Inland Revenue Service amounting to N3,667,750,470, $148,845,745.04, €4,891,449.50 and £252,682.14.
“This is in addition to an audit query of N15.18bn allegedly stolen through inflated Corporate Social Responsibility projects/programmes under the watch of the suspended NPA Managing Director.
“As representatives of the suffering people of Nigeria, our caucus is particularly very worried that such monumental lootings are going on at a time terrorists, bandits, unknown gunmen and criminal militias are reigning supreme across the length and breadth of the country, and life has consequently become the cheapest article in the country.
“We imagine that such resources, if channeled to the security sector and well managed, would have made a world of difference in addressing the problem of insecurity in the country.”
This is as the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, inaugurated an 11-man panel today to investigate the alleged misdeeds of the NPA boss.
The panel is chaired by Suleiman Auwalu, Director of Maritime Services, while Gabriel Fan, the Deputy Director of Legal services in the Federal Ministry of Transportation, will act as secretary.