… sets up panel of inquiry, to submit report in two weeks
*** Presidency squandered $1.867trn in 2yrs –Reps
The noose tightened on the Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah, yesterday as President Goodluck Jonathan set up a three-man administrative panel of inquiry to investigate the allegation of purchase of N255m armoured BMW cars by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, for her.
This is even as the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, called on President Jonathan to as a matter of urgency sack the minister.
The President had on Tuesday queried the minister.
Former Head of Service of the Federation, Alhaji Isa Bello Sali, heads the three-man panel.
The two other members of the panel are National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and Air Vice Marshal Dick Iruenaberi.
The panel is to submit its report within two weeks while the secretariat of the panel will be provided by the office of the NSA.
Similarly, the Senate and the House of Representatives have ordered probe into the scandal.
NLC President, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, speaking at the end of the National Executive Council, NEC, meeting of the union in Kaduna on Wednesday said workers are against the purchase of bulletproof cars by the minister.
He said: "NLC NEC condemns the purchase of the bulletproof cars in totality and we are even calling on Mr. President to probe the minister on that transaction.
"We want her sanctioned. If it means that she needs to be sacked, she should be sacked, in as much as that will ensure sanity in the system."
Oduah was conspicuously absent at the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting yesterday.
She was said to have travelled to Israel for the signing of Bilateral Air Service Agreement, BASA, which would be part of Jonathan's engagement while on pilgrimage to the holy land.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, at a post-FEC briefing stated that Jonathan has taken initial steps by asking Oduah for explanations, stressing that it was not right to say that the President is not aware of the matter.
According to him, the panel is saddled with the assignment to investigate whether the procurement process, with regards to the armoured vehicles followed due process as well as to find out the purpose to which the vehicles were procured and then to inquire into any other incidental matter.
Abati stated that nobody, no matter how highly placed would be shielded from the probe while appropriate action would be taken against any person or persons who may be found guilty of any misconduct or misappropriation.
"Let me assure you that President Jonathan will like to assure the general public that nobody, no matter how highly placed will be shielded or exempted from this inquiry that he has directed and that appropriate action will be taken against any person or persons who may be found guilty of misconduct or misappropriation of public funds either in this respect or in any other respect.
"Indeed, Mr. President considers this a very weighty matter and that is not true as some people have been alleging that no action has been taken."
On whether the Minister will step aside while the panel carries out her investigation, Abati said: "Well, I have just announced to you what I was asked; to announce that a panel of inquiry has been set up. This panel will address all the relevant questions and advise Mr. President accordingly within two weeks."
The transaction for the purchase of the two BMW cars was said to have started in June, but the request for the delivery and payment for them was fasttracked between August 13 and 15, 2013.
However, the Director General of NCAA, Captain Fola Akinkuotu, said contrary to widespread rumours that the cars were official vehicles of the minister, they were part of the pool cars being used by the authority for high level operational duties.
In another development, the House of Representatives has opened a probe into alleged misappropriation of special funds by the President's Office in the 2012 and 2013 budgets, estimated at N1.867trn.
Besides, the House insists that the embattled NCAA would also account for a five-year expenditure of the BASA funds available to it for expenditure on airports' rehabilitation, its contract for the Terminal Radar Coverage of Nigeria, TRACON, and alleged diversion of billions of naira from Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, and other agencies to the Education Ministry.
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the House, Hon. Solomon Adeola Olamilekan (APC/Alimosho-Lagos), announced the decision of his committee to carry out the multiple probes at a press briefing yesterday.
He said the Committee had directed the NCAA to give a detailed account of the expenditure of the funds for the years under review.
"We have written to the NCAA to account for the several billions of BASA funds that came into NCAA accounts as inflows and outflows in the last five years and this expenditure profile must come with relevant documentary evidence to us," he said.
The lawmaker said his committee would also probe the contract for the TRACON even as he regretted that everyone is in the dark about the aviation ministry.
He disclosed earlier that his committee would soon lay its report in plenary on alleged squandering of over N1.8trn by the Presidency under the cover of service-wide votes (exigency funds) in the years 2012 and 2013.
"The budget that you see coming to us for approval year in, year out always ends up with 40 per cent of it being kept aside for the expenditure by the office of the President on exigencies, in the name of Service-wide Votes. These monies are spent without what we call the Authority to Incur Expenditure, AIE, or the approval of the National Assembly.
"The Office of the President, not agencies or ministries alone, took N1.6trn in the 2013 Budget as SWV, and the office of the Accountant General spent N267bn in 2012," he claimed.
