Officials of the ministry were invited to appear before the State House of Assembly Committee on Public Petitions headed by Hon. Emeka Aforka to explain the missing files belonging to two petitioners.
The Director of Lands in the ministry and the Permanent Secretary were confronted with the missing files belonging to the wife of the former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mrs Obiamaka Enenchukwu and Chief Jude Osude.
They could not provide adequate information as to the sudden disappearance of the files in their custody.
Counsel to the wife of the former Speaker, Mr Robert Okwuego, who described illegalities in the ministry as “unfortunate”, alleging that serving staff of the ministry connived with ex-staff to falsify documents as well as forge signatures.
Okwuego said, “If we have House members in other states doing like this, I think things will be better in this country.
“They are trying now to expose the corruption, based on our petition. In some areas, if you raise this kind of petition they will be suppressed because of politics. But Anambra lawmakers have shown selflessness, sacrifice and love for the state.
“It’s annoying to see public servants descending into the arena of fraud. It’s not proper for you to take sides or encourage criminality or any sort of fraud. When we reported the issue of fraud to the ministry of Lands, we expected them to be on the alert and not to deal with former staff.
“There is a lot of rot in the state ministry of lands and the House of Assembly will expose all those involved in the sharp practices and make the necessary recommendations.
On his part, Chief Jude Osude said that members of the committee were thorough in handling his petition, describing the lawmakers as serious-minded people.
Osude who said that his case was the loss of his file, disclosed that the development led to trespassers enchroaching on his land with forged documents which allegedly emanated from the ministry.
He affirmed that nobody revoked lands without due process and that the process of revocation must be in the file, saying that there was no file in his own case.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Emeka Aforka, who frowned at the prevalence of missing files and relevant documents in the ministry, urged the officials to be careful with files and documents in their custody.
“It is rather unfortunate that files kept in your custody would be declared missing without trace,” he said.
He therefore cautioned staff and mandated them to commence the process of recovery of files declared missing to clean up the mess in the ministry.
The committee also summoned an ex-commissioner in the ministry and one other person to appear before it to respond to issues of allegation of fraud.