The transition committee in
its report noted: “The handover note from the previous administration showed an
aggregate contractor liability of N4 trillion as at April 2015.
Nigerian citizens would
like to know how did the 28 federal ministries, their departments and agencies
under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan incur a whopping N4
trillion contractual debt? Who issued the jobs and did they pass through due
process and if so, did the contractors complete the assigned jobs?
These and more are the
duties which a special task force to be raised by the Federal Government is to
undertake before the debt could be classified as Federal Government liability
and settled by the new administration.
The N4 trillion debt, which
is nearly the country’s budget for one year, was handed over by the previous
government to the present administration as part of the hand-over note given to
the Transition Committee raised by President Muhammadu Buhari.
But after looking at the
debt profile and not being able to establish its authenticity, the Transition
Committee headed by Alhaji Ahmed Joda, has made a strong recommendation to
President Buhari to raise a ministerial task force to probe how the huge debts
were incurred in the first place.
“It is imperative that the administration
establishes an inter-ministerial task force to review all outstanding contracts
and associated liabilities across all ministries, departments and agencies.
“The mandate of the task
force is to confirm the existence of the liabilities and authenticate the
accuracy of the information provided in the handover notes.
“The government should only
recognise the liabilities verified and confirmed by the task force.”
The Joda committee said it
could not rely on the handover note it received from the Jonathan
administration because of the fact that the specific dates when the contracts
were awarded were not provided, thereby raising suspicion about their
genuineness.
It noted: “A detailed list
of contractors was not provided and therefore, some balances may be double
counted, thereby, making contracts funded through debt to be captured by the
Ministry of Finance and the contracting ministry.
“No documentation was
provided to confirm if the projects were executed to agreed specifications
while some contracts may have been cancelled or terminated,” the report noted.
Buhari must probe no matter what, thieves
ReplyDeleteworst government ever
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