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The Director of
Aerodrome in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mr. Joyce
Nkem-Akonam, said that Ministry of Aviation approved the purchase of the N255m
bulletproof cars for Ms Stella Oduah. He made this known during the committee’s
public sitting in Abuja.
He told the committee
that “Leased financing, not direct financing, was
adopted to procure the vehicles,” and that the agency breached no law.
However, an official of
the BPP, Mr. Ayo Aderigbigbe, who represented the Director-General, faulted him,
and told the committee that: “A ministerial tender’s board can approve
expenditure of N100m and below, but if it is above N100m, it must go before the
Federal Executive Council,”
The BPP official also disclosed
that the agency was never contacted by the NCAA over the car purchase.
“We have nothing to forward to the committee
on this matter. We have no information on the purchase of the two vehicles or
the contract in question.” He said
Meanwhile,The Director-General of the NCAA, Capt. Fola Akintuotu, had earlier told
the committee that he assumed duties on August 14, after the expenditure had
been done and he was not in charge of affairs when the
transaction took place.
It would be recalled
that Stella Oduah had earlier been summoned by the committee to appear before
it on Thursday, but was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the
Ministry, Mr. George Ossi who said that: “The minister had already left
the country, but transmitted a scanned copy of her reply from Israel and she is leading the Nigerian delegation to
Israel to sign a Bilateral Air Services Agreement.’’
“She cannot cut short
her visit to Israel because they will most probably sign the BASA on Monday
(next week).” He added.
Meanwhile, fresh
facts emerged during the committee’s sitting on how
the NCAA made a commitment of “over N1bn” to procure vehicles for
security and operational purposes this year without appropriation by the
National Assembly.
It was revealed that the total
budget approved by the National Assembly for NCAA’s vehicles this year is N240m
and this was meant for 25 vehicles, excluding the two bulletproof cars. But
the agency bought 54 vehicles for N643.1m under “Leased
Financing” entered into with the First Bank Plc, excluding he controversial
N255m bulletproof cars,
The Aviation
committee, which worked on the budget of the agency, had rejected the NCAA’s
request to buy the bulletproof cars.
But NCAA later
side-tracked the National Assembly to seek the approval of the Ministry of
Aviation to purchase the bulletproof cars @ the cost of N70m each, which they later opted to pay N127.5m
for each car, totalling N255m for the two.
This brought the
“extra-budgetary” expenditure of the NCAA on vehicles this year to
N643.1m.
The opinion of most patriotic
Nigerian was expressed in words of one
of the member of the panel, Mr. Mohammed Wudil, who said “What has come
to light is that, if you calculate and include all the charges, the
NCAA has committed about N1bn of public funds to these vehicles.”
Mrs. Nkiruka Onyejeocha,
who headed the committe said that the “NCAA clearly committed an
illegality and breached the 1999
Constitution by spending without appropriation by the
National Assembly.”
The committee later
ruled that Oduah must appear unfailingly on Tuesday.
“Our ruling is that the
minister must be here on Tuesday,” Committee ruled..
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