By Aideloje Ojo
Minna
The Commission of Inquiry set up by the Niger state government to investigate financial undertakings of two local government areas of Borgu and Rafi has indicted the chairmen of the councils over financial misappropriation and fraud amounting to several millions of naira.
The panel led by Justice Aisha Bwari submitted its report yesterday in Minna, explaining that it discovered massive stealing of public funds and uttermost disregard to financial regulations in the administration of the two local governments.
Bwari said similar disregard for accounting rules and procedures, including giving of verbal directives to local government staff by the chairmen to release huge amounts from public funds were rampant in the councils.
She said it also uncovered the embezzlement of Hajj deposits by intending pilgrims whereby the money collected from over 43 intending pilgrims were allegedly diverted to private use by the local government chairmen and their councilors.
She said: “What we found most touching was the issue of diversion of hajj deposits of people who have saved all their lives to perform hajj only to be frustrated, their dreams dashed because some people have diverted the savings.
“In one of the local government’s deposits by 30 intending pilgrims were diverted with the suspended chairman promising to refund the money while in the second local government area the savings by 13 intending pilgrims were diverted to finance the participation of councillors and senior staff.”
She said the Borgu chairman verbally awarded the contract for the construction of a 40 kilometer road project at the cost of N16m without documents adding that only N1.3 million was expended on the job and the balance of the money ‘disappear into thin air after it was collected from the treasury’ by the suspended chairman
Bwari also said the panel discovered that the Borgu local government area collected tenement rate of N8 million monthly from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria through a tax consultant from November 2012 to June 2013, making a total of N64 million, but only N9 million was paid into the account of the local government.
