Reps Summon Tony Anenih Over N2.3bn Failed Road Contract
Representatives
Committee on Public Accounts on Monday summoned former Minister of Works and
former chairman, Board of Trustees, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony
Anenih, to defend his actions on a sum of N2.3 billion allegedly spent on
failed road contract in Nasarawa State in 2006.
To appear along with Chief Anenih
before the committee are the site engineers, Federal Comptroller of Works and
the Permanent Secretary of the ministry when the contract was awarded, while
the committee headed by Honourable Solomon Adeola Olamilekan vowed to use the
services of International Police (Interpol), to extradite the contractor, Torno
Internazionale Nigeria Limited which absconded from the country after
collecting the sum of N1.8 billion without executing the road project contract
awarded.
Also, the committee is to write to the
Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), to seek the identities of Nigerians who
were on the board of the company which only executed 19 per cent of the
contract.
According to Honorable Olamilekan,
Chief Anenih was being invited in respect of a memo he presented to then
Federal Executive Council (FEC), under former President Olusegun Obasanjo,
which made the FEC to award the contract to the firm despite earlier strong
advice that the firm had no technical capacity to handle the road project.
The committee, however, expressed
reservation as to why such a huge amount of money would go down the drain under
the watchful eyes of those at the helms.
The Auditor General of the Federation,
had in its 2006 audit report alleged that the failed road contract was awarded
for N2.3 billion out of which N552 million, was paid before the contract was
terminated. The contractor later went to court and obtained court judgment of
N1.3 billion against the Federal Government for terminating the contract.
In a related development, the
committee has summoned another contractor along with site engineers and Federal
Comptroller of roads over another failed N1.45 billion road contract in Enugu
State.
Source:
Tribune
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