Ahead of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta\u2019s consideration of the 2015
\nStatus Report of the Presidential Amnesty Programme at the Senate today,
\nsenators have indicated their disapproval of the over N48 billion
\npurportedly spent by the President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s coordinator of the
\nprogramme, Brig-Gen. Paul Boro (rtd), since he assumed office last July.<\/p>\n
The senators, who preferred not to be named, were particularly concerned
\nover Boro\u2019s purchase of official vehicles for his office for over N157
\nmillion as well as the huge sums of money purported to have been expended
\non the training of ex-militants between November and December last year.<\/p>\n
The expenditure, which according to the senators, was listed in the
\nannual status report of the Amnesty Office sent to the Senate Committees
\non Niger Delta and Public Procurement, have made nonsense of the federal
\ngovernment\u2019s efforts at belt tightening measures, arising from the
\nnation\u2019s dwindling earnings from crude oil.<\/p>\n
The annual report, which the two Senate committees would review along
\nwith the office\u2019s 2016 budget today, said the senators, indicated that
\nBoro who took over from Hon. Kingsley Kuku as Presidential Adviser on the
\nAmnesty Programme under the current administration, in just five months
\nawarded contracts worth about N48 billion.<\/p>\n
Describing most of the contracts awarded by Boro as \u201cmostly nebulous or
\nfrivolous\u201d, the senators were particularly irked that at a time Buhari had
\ncastigated the National Assembly for its proposal to buy official cars for
\nsenators and members of the House of Representatives, the Amnesty Office
\ncoordinator, who is just an appointee of the president, had since acquired
\nas his official car, an armoured Lexus LX 570 Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV)
\nwith communications equipment for VIP movement.<\/p>\n
The exotic official car was acquired from Wada Autos Limited at the
\nprincely sum of N55 million and full payment has since been made by the
\nAmnesty Office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president claims to be fighting corruption while his aides are
\nalready swimming in corruption. Can you imagine a Special Adviser using a
\nbullet proof Lexus car worth N55 million as an official car at a time the
\npresident is trying to stop us from buying our own official cars worth
\nabout N5 million each? So what happened to the monetisation policy of the
\nfederal government?\u201d queried an irate senator, who is a member of the
\nSenate Committee on Niger Delta.<\/p>\n
The report before the two Senate committees and sighted by THISDAY also
\nindicated that Boro had further acquired for his office from Globe Motors
\nLimited, the following cars: one Toyota Land Cruiser VX V8 at the cost of
\nN25.85 million; four Toyota Camry 3.5L V6 cars and four Toyota Hilux 4WD
\nbuses at the total sum of N75.35 million. Globe Motors has since been
\npaid fully the sum.<\/p>\n
Some of the senators complained that a thorough analysis of contract
\ndocuments attached to the report showed that at a time Nigeria is
\nexperiencing perhaps its worst economic downturn in recent times,
\nBuhari\u2019s adviser on the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme appears only
\nconcerned about awarding \u201cfrivolous\u201d contracts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expected him to restructure the budget he inherited from his
\npredecessor at the Amnesty Office to fit into current economic realities
\nand in line with the anti-corruption crusade of President Buhari.
\nUnfortunately Boro is just spending recklessly,\u201d lamented another senator
\nwho did not want to be named.<\/p>\n
Credible sources at the Amnesty Office, however, confided in THISDAY that The nation\u2019s financial regulations stipulate that unspent appropriated Latching on to the need to \u201cempower\u201d already trained Niger Delta Said a source: \u201cIn several instances, the same contractors used by the According to an angry senator, the contract awards occurred in spite of The senator said his investigations had revealed that under the guise \u201cSeveral of them have since returned and are on the verge of being placed The senator said officials of the Amnesty Office told him that N510 This transaction, according to him, stipulated that over a period \u201cThe same Boro who has been telling Nigerians that the Amnesty Office does Even more curious, he claimed, was the fact that the payment of the N510 Rather, the senator further claimed, Boro in glaring breach of the Efforts to reach Boro and his media consultant, Mr. Owei Lakemfa, failed, ThisDay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ahead of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta\u2019s consideration of the 2015 Status Report of the Presidential Amnesty Programme at the Senate today, senators have indicated their disapproval of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nBoro began the contract awards in November 2015 apparently to beat the
\nDecember 31<\/span><\/span> deadline for the return of unspent monies to the treasury, as
\nstipulated by the extant financial regulations in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\nfunds be returned to the treasury after December 31<\/span><\/span> every year. However,
\nthe federal government made exemptions for the funding of capital
\nprojects to continue till March 2016.<\/p>\n
\nex-agitators, THISDAY sources claimed that some of the contracts did not
\nfollow established guidelines for awards.<\/p>\n
\nformer administration of Kingsley Kuku, who already had due clearance
\nfrom the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) were rushed in to handle the
\nso-called empowerment contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nthe fact that several of the Amnesty Programme\u2019s trainees in universities
\nabroad were either stranded or had been repatriated due to their inability
\nto meet with their financial obligations to their schools.<\/p>\n
\nthat there was no money to pay the ex-militants\u2019 tuition and in-training
\nallowances, Boro had ordered the students in universities in the UK,
\nUnited States of America, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Russia, the
\nPhilippines, Belarus and elsewhere abroad, to return to Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\nin Nigerian universities to continue their education. The Amnesty Office
\ncannot afford to deploy or maintain delegates offshore anymore,\u201d he quoted
\na senior official of the Education Department of the Amnesty Office as
\nsaying.<\/p>\n
\nmillion was paid to an institution, Westerfield Colleges, to prepare 150
\nstudents for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).<\/p>\n
\nspanning just two months, Westerfield Colleges would prepare the students
\nfor the UTME organised by JAMB at a cost of N3.4 million per delegate.<\/p>\n
\nnot have money to fund the education of students abroad is the one
\nawarding a contract worth N510 million to an institution to organise JAMB
\nclasses for fresh students. This is really very silly and embarrassing,\u201d
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
\nmillion by the Amnesty Office was not treated as a contract, hence no
\naward letter was issued to Westerfield.<\/p>\n
\nProcurement Act and other extant financial regulations of the federal
\ngovernment, ordered that the payment to Westerfield be passed off as a
\ndirect payment to a school and students.<\/p>\n
\nas neither of them responded to calls to their mobile phones. A text sent
\nto Lakemfa\u2019s phone was also not replied.<\/p>\n