The
embattled Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, has been accused
by the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation of approving
N564m for the purchase of 54 cars beyond her power.
The committee alleged that Oduah, who
finally appeared before it on Thursday after failing to honour
earlier invitations, did not follow the budget approved for the
Aviation ministry and its agencies by the National Assembly.
The minister, who wore a striped blue ankara
dress with a matching blue head scarf, walked into the hall at 11.42am
looking somewhat disturbed. She also wore white beaded jewellery to
complement her embroidered blouse.
Oduah first walked to take a seat
facing the committee members and made to sit but changed her mind.
She went halfway between her seat and the high table, where she
exchanged pleasantries with the Chairman of the committee, Mrs. Nkiruka
Onyejeocha.
After that she walked out of the hall, spending about 10 minutes before returning to her seat to make a presentation.
A few seconds after, the committee
chairman while giving her opening speech, tried to douse the tense
atmosphere at the venue of the hearing.
“We are not mourning here, there is no
aeroplane crash; I want to see everyone smiling. Please feel free and
relax,” she counselled.
- Oduah on the hot seat
Thereafter, Oduah was called upon to
testify on her role in the purchase of two bulletproof cars at a
whopping N255m and other vehicles by the Nigerian Civil Aviation
Authority.
She took an oath, promising to say “nothing but the truth, the whole truth.”
The minister, who seemed to have
regained confidence looked the committee members in the face and
then apologised for her failure to honour their earlier summons.
She denied that the NCAA bought the two bulletproof cars for her use.
Her audacity took the lawmakers aback a
bit, as she also rationalised the action of the NCAA, claiming that its
decision to buy the 54 cars did not breach any law of the land.
She stated that the NCAA bought the
bulletproof cars for its own operations in line with the rising profile
of Nigeria as an ICAO member.
The minister, who sounded impatient as
she gave her testimony, added that there was a required international
standard for state-of-the cars to provide security for visitors and
certain category of passengers visiting any country.
According to her, she was alarmed by media reports tying the purchase of the cars to her personal comfort.
She said, “It is not true that NCAA spent N255m to purchase the bulletproof cars for the minister.
“It is totally untrue; there is nothing reflecting my name. The cars were not registered in my name.
“All I did was approve based on the proposal sent to me on lease financing by the NCAA.”
She defended the NCAA, saying that it bought the cars as part of its three-year budgetary plan to beef up its operational fleet.
But, there was a mild drama when the
committee questioned her over the approval of N564m for the 54 cars
above the N100m which ministers could approve.
Oduah said the expectation was that
because the NCAA entered into a “lease financing” agreement with the
First Bank of Nigerian to span 36 months, the amount of money it would
have paid to the bank by December was N100m. According to her, the
N100m is still within the spending limit.
The Head, Lagos Mainland branch of
First Bank, which handled the transaction, Mr. Seyi Ojefeso, had on
Tuesday told the committee that the NCAA approached the bank for a
loan to purchase vehicles for its management staff.
Ojefeso claimed that it was possible that the NCAA “got it mixed up” when it described it as a lease agreement.
He explained that the NCAA applied for a loan package of N643m to finance the purchase of 54 vehicles.
For the bulletproof cars, he said there was a Coscharis pro forma invoice attached to the application in the value of N255m.
He added, “We offered an auto loan to the NCAA in May to purchase cars for its management staff.
“The application was for N643m; we financed the purchase of the cars based on the application they submitted to us.”
But the committee observed that the
original request of the NCAA to the minister was N564m, but First
Bank eventually approved a loan of N643m.
When asked to explain how the
difference came about, Ojefeso said only the NCAA could answer the
question since N564m was not in the agency’s communication with the
bank.
When the committee members accused her
of giving anticipatory approval for expenditure beyond her power, Oduah
said she expected the NCAA to go back and do “the needful” by
complying with procurement regulations.
Leading the barrage of questions, Mr.
Jerry Manwe stated, “You did not follow the budget approved for you by
the National Assembly because when you calculate the total expenditure,
the NCAA would have paid over N1bn for the 54 cars.
“The agency would have paid N160m which
is above your approval limit by December as part of the instalments and
not N100m, which is within your power.
“The committee refused to approve the
N140m the NCAA proposed for bulletproof cars because we said you cannot
use bulletproof cars to patrol the perimeter fencing at the airports.
“Nowhere in the budget did we approve
bulletproof cars, but you went ahead to spend money in anticipation of
budgetary provision.”
But, the minister countered that the
interpretation of her approval was that the NCAA should do the
appropriate thing by complying with the requirement of procurement laws.
“My memo says, approved. Please, do the needful; what does that mean? What does that tell you?”, Oduah asked Manwe.
She implied that her approval was not final, to the dismay of lawmakers.
There was more drama when the committee
turned the heat on the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Aviation and the
management of the NCAA.
The Permanent Secretary of the
ministry, Mr. George Ossi, and a former Acting DG of the NCAA, who
supervised the transaction, Mr. Joyce Nkem-Akonam, both admitted that
the approval implied that they were to comply with due process
regulations.
Nkem-Akonam stated, “What the approval means is that we go through due diligence in our system.
“We did that in our procurement department and complied with the law.
“From the point the minister’s approval
came, we went ahead with the mindset that we already had a budgetary
approval by the National Assembly.”
In the ensuing buck-passing and
confusion, the committee read out the portion of the 2013 NCAA budget
where the National Assembly “clearly approved only N240m for the
purchase of 25 operational vehicles.”
Manwe then tried to blast the NCAA and the permanent secretary for allegedly “misleading the minister.”
He noted that they ignored the budgetary
approval of N240m for 25 cars and made their own proposal of 54 cars
for N564m which was “far above the approval limit of N100m” without
recourse to the Federal Executive Council.
Another member of the committee, Mr.
Adeyinka Ajayi, sought to know the date the Board of the NCAA approved
the transaction, but there was no answer.
Neither Nkem-Akonam nor Osi could give the date of the approval. They promised to consult and get the date.
Adeyinka again asked, “Where are the bulletproof cars now since the minister has said they were not bought for her?”
Nkem-Akonam replied that the vehicles were “pool cars” that could be used by any officer, including Oduah.
“They are pool cars for VIP movement, including the minister; including you, honourable member”, he added.
- Minister apologises, says issues muddled up
Earlier, Oduah had apologised for her
failure to appear before yesterday, blaming it on her trip abroad to
sign a Bilateral Air Services Agreement between Nigera and Israel .
She also admitted that attempts made by some officials to clarify the car scandal were “muddled up.”
She spoke further, “You may recall that
there have been attempts at clarifying issues pertaining to this
particular procurement. In the process, some of the issues were further
muddled up.
“I mention in this regard the first
attempt at clarifying the issue by the Coordinating Spokesperson for the
parastatals when he was first confronted with the allegation, without
recourse to the Minister or the Principal Officer of the Ministry and
its agencies, described the information as a mere rumour.
“This was followed by the statement of
my Special Adviser, Media, who was himself guided by his own perception
of the duties and challenges of my office and possibly, even the danger
to the person and office of the minister.
“This is made evident by the fact that
his statement focused on my personal security and safety without
recourse to procurement process and policy file to which he had no
access.
“Although both inaccurate and innocently
misguided, I understand the urgency and aggression considering the
sources the information was breaking from.
“The last official intervention in this
matter came from the Director-General of NCAA, the agency charged with
the oversight of the aviation sector and the agency that actually
undertook the procurement.
“Whereas the DG was right in saying that
the vehicles were not bought for my office, the anticipated positive
effect of this correct piece of information was marred by remarks
credited to the DG suggesting that the agency was more concerned about
issues of administration and information security that had no bearing on
this issue.”
Meanwhile, Coscharis Motors insisted on Thursday that the cars it supplied were the same quoted on the transaction documents.
Lawmakers, who inspected the
bulletproof cars at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport on Tuesday, reported that
they bore different chassis numbers from those quoted in the
transaction documents.
- Coscharis says “transposition error” occurred
However, on Thursday, the Chairman of
the company, Mr. Cosmos Maduka, and his team blamed the discrepancy on
“transposition error.”
“The cars you inspected are the correct
cars. There are 12 cars on the end-user certificate and the DW68011 you
are referring to is one of them”, he said.
Amidst heated disagreement between the
two sides, Coscharis offered to access the BMW factory online, using the
chassis numbers to prove that they were the right cars.
But the committee members overruled him and directed Coscharis to produce more documents to defend his claim.
Having heard from all the parties to the controversy, the committee made what sounded like a preliminary report.
- We’ve established some facts – Committee
Onyejeocha, who closed the session, said, “Facts speak for themselves.
“We have listened to the NCAA, Coscharis, First Bank, Customs and the minister.
“It has been established that N240m was
budgeted by the National Assembly for 25 cars; we have seen that N255m
was used to buy bulletproof cars.
“We have seen another approval of N643m for the purchase of 54 cars.
“We will consider all our findings to
see whether they are in line with extant laws and financial regulations
and then write our report.
“We assure Nigerians that we will report to them.”
Oduah too spoke briefly with reporters
on her way out. She thanked the House for giving a “platform for my
own side to be heard on this issue.”
She said she was happy that the “truth” came out that bulletproof cars were not bought for her.
Culled: PUNCH
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