BEVERLY HILLS, December 18, (THEWILL) – Fresh details have emerged on how the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal, made suspicious payments and allegedly awarded spurious contract of N220 million for the removal of wild grass and the provision of 115 hectares of simplified village irrigation in Yobe State.
The details reveal that Josmon Technologies, a firm that was awarded contract by the Presidential Intiative on North East (PINE), paid the money into the bank account of Rholavision Engineering Limited, said to be owned by the SGF.
THEWILL recalls that the Senate had asked Lawal to resign immediately to face prosecution for alleged abuse of office, contract inflation and misappropriation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) funds following the consideration of the interim report of the Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the Northeast.
Lawal however responded the Senate saying the allegations were ‘rubbish’ declaring that he was not even allowed to defend himself.
The report show that after Josmon Technologies was paid, it began to make payments into Rholavision’s account number 0182001809 in Eco Bank on March 29, 2016, when it paid N50 million into the account in five instalments of N10 million.
The payment continued the following day, March 30, when it paid another N50 million in five instalments of N10 million each. On March 31, it paid N20 million in two instalments of N10 million each.
The sequence continued as Josmon on April 1, 2016, paid another N50 million in five instalments of N10 million and continued on April 4, when it paid N25 million in three instalments of N10 million each twice and another N5 million.
The report adds that N10 million was paid on September 8, 2016, while another N10 million and N55 million were paid on September 9.
Curiously, the award of contract for the removal of wild grass along the river channel, which does not fall into the IDPs immediate needs, came into the job schedule of PINE.
THEWILL recalls that Lawal had previously defended himself against allegations of wrong-doing regarding PINE.
Lawal, in response to a question on N1.3billion meant for IDPs and the Senate investigation on TV queried:
“Who is investigating? The Senate? These are also part of the issues of separation of powers that people abuse. I do know that I don’t have immunity to accuse you without proof but the members of the National Assembly can say anything on the floor and are immune to prosecution but people are abusing it and in this case people are maliciously abusing and wickedly abused their privileges in the National Assembly,” he said
“PINE, Presidential Initiative on the North East, was set up by President Jonathan – thank God for him. It used to be run under the finance ministry, under the minister of state. When I took over, we were wondering who was running the North East programme until one day, the National Assembly members from the North East paid me a courtesy call thinking that it was being run by my office.
“I told them it wasn’t my office so I telephoned the Vice President and asked ‘Oga, who is running PINE’, he said ‘I think it is your office’. When it got to budget period, I asked the minister of budget the same question about PINE, no he said it is your office or the NSA’s office.
“What I discovered was that there was a consultant, Senior Special Assistant to the former NSA who was in charge of PINE. The man who was claiming to be leading the PINE was an adviser to the former NSA and such a person’s tenure lapses with the other principal officer.
“So I said you can no longer run PINE. At that time in 2015, there was N2.5 billion for the programme. The money was just thee doing nothing but paying consultants. I understand that at one time they were using it to buy pre-fabricated schools.
“The principle of PINE is this and there is a Permanent Secretary who runs PINE. There are 23 of such agencies in this office. We now said for people to return to their homes, we must guarantee that they are able to engage in productive work before they were pushed out, which means rebuild the schools that were burnt, rebuild the police stations and barracks so people can returns part of confidence-building. That’s just it.”
