By John Ikani
The Public Account Committee (PAC) of Nigeria’s House of Representatives says it has launched a probe to determine how the nation’s Ministry of Agriculture awarded contracts worth about N18.9bn to several companies to clear bushes during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Oluwole Oke (PDP-Osun), who made the disclosure on Tuesday at an investigative hearing in Abuja, said the N18.9bn worth of contracts was also meant for “preparing the ground, and restoring soil plant laboratories.”
According to him, the committee would find the location of the projects and their impacts on the country.
He went on to disclose that the committee had consequently invited the ministry and the companies involved.
The invited firms were, however, conspicuously absent at the hearing without any reason for their non-appearance.
What the lawmakers are saying
“During the lockdown of the country as a result of COVID-19, some companies took contracts worth about N18 billion for bush clearing from the federal ministry of agriculture for land preparation, rehabilitation of soil plant lab and others. We cannot shave their heads in their absence,” Oke said.
“We have invited them to come and give us their own side by responding to the issues and show us the places they are supposed to have cleared. They have to take us to the land they cleared.
“We have invited the ministry of agriculture, and they have made (a) submission. But some of our members whose constituencies these projects were supposed to be domiciled doubted the existence of these projects, and for (a) fair hearing, we have invited the companies that got the contract for them to come and tell this committee where and when the jobs were executed,” he said.
What you should know
The N18.9bn bush clearing probe adds to a long list of scandals that have become characteristic of President Muhammadu Buhari’s-led administration which – not surprisingly – has abysmal ratings in transparency and accountability.
It is particularly worrisome that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which made pious noises about probity and morality, and rode to popularity on the strength of preachment against the comparatively smaller corruption of past administrations, is now neck-deep in the nadir of some of the worst forms of venality witnessed in Nigeria.
As Nigerian newspaper columnist Farooq Kperogi put it: “The stench bomb of fetid corruption that will explode after Buhari leaves office would be so unprecedentedly malodorous it would deaden Nigeria’s collective nasal sensibility for a long time.”
