…”It’s all false and baseless,” he says
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–Pix(above, L-R): Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Mr. Umana Okon Umana
The Senate of the National Assembly has summoned the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Umana Okon Umana, over allegations of a sleaze running up to N480bn as well as abuse of office.
Revealing this to journalists during the week, in Abuja, the chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions, Sen. Ayo Akinyelure, said a petition before the committee alleges that the minister was aiding corrupt practices and had failed to inaugurate the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Akinyelure said the minister was also accused of trying to replace the Sole Administrator of the NDDC, Effiong Akwa, who was duly appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari, and confirmed by the National Assembly, as well as sacking over 700 staff of the NDDC, thereby worsening unemployment situation in the country.
According to him, Umana has perfected plans to seek presidential approval to collect the said money in the guise of spending it on ‘special projects’ in the Niger Delta region.
The Senator said: “Umana Umana is said to have perfected ways to present some new projects to President Muhammadu Buhari to approve for him to start using the money to implement projects that are not appropriated by National Assembly.
“The power of appropriation is conferred on the National Assembly, not on Mr. President; Mr. President can only give approval for service Wide Votes when the money appropriated by the National Assembly is not adequate to implement some projects meant for a particular state or region,” he stressed, adding that “several other allegations were levelled against Umana – among which is his refusal to forward two annual budgets of the NDDC (2021 and 2022) to the National Assembly for approval while money is being spent by the commission on the orders of the minister, thereby taking the power of appropriations onto himself.”
Going further, he said: “The president has, in his wisdom, deemed it fit to appropriate funds to the Niger Delta region, but the minister has refused to bring the appropriation before the National Assembly for us the democratically elected representatives of the people to give approval; he and his cronies have refused to do so. There are lots of higher level mismanagement of resources due to develop the Niger Delta region, and we cannot allow this abuse of office to continue.
“Because we are entering an election year, this has become the fear of the Niger Delta people. We have less than seven months for Mr. President to say bye-bye to Nigeria and he has a legacy to prove that he loves the country.
“Why must the budget of 2021 and 2022 be held by the minister, by collaborating with some people who do not love the people of the Niger Delta region, and not bringing his budget to the National Assembly, when we are ready to pass the budget of NDDC?
“The budget of other similar agencies brought by their ministers have been approved by the National Assembly; why not his?”
Continuing, he said: “The minister is also summoned to explain why he sacked over 700 NDDC staff, thereby compounding the level of unemployment in the country.
“On his assumption of office as the Minister of Nigeria Delta Affairs, he sacked over 700 staff to compound the problem of Nigerians. We have received documentary evidence to back this allegation.
“He is there in the Niger Delta Affairs Ministry to pursue personal agenda, instead of pursuing the agenda of the people of Niger Delta region,” Senator Akinyelure further alleged.
Similarly, the minister was also accused of plotting to sack the current NDDC Sole Administrator, Effiong Akwa who was appointed by President Buhari and have him replaced by one of his cronies.
“The petition before the Senate also accused Umana of deliberate refusal to inaugurate the NDDC board, so as to find loopholes for further abuses of office,” the senator said, noting that the minister had been invited to appear before the committee on November 10 to provide answers to all the allegations.
“We are giving him a fair hearing to come on the 10th of November and defend these allegations and confirm that he never made any attempt to remove the appointee of Mr. President,” he stressed.
…N480bn fraud allegation false, baseless—Umana
But dismissing the fraud allegation as ‘false,’ the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Umana Okon Umana, said a series of allegations made against him, including an imaginary and libelous claim of N480 billion fraud, were totally baseless.
In rejecting the allegations, which he said, were made by professional petition writers to the National Assembly, Umana said no fraud has been committed under his watch in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, and that no money has been released or expended on the projects cited in the petition.
The minister explained that in line with his directive at the last meeting of the National Council, adjustments had been made in the 2022 budget proposals of the NDDC to accommodate core regional infrastructure projects based on a new template for the development of the Niger Delta region.
Explaining through his SA/Media, Iboro Otogaran, Friday, the minister said: “It is senseless for the petitioners to allege that the compilation of projects to include in the budget proposals of NDDC for 2022 for transmission to the National Assembly is a crime.
“Everything is at the proposal stage; no contracts have been awarded and no money has been disbursed or expended,” he said, adding, “anything to the contrary is false and should be dismissed in its entirety.”
Umana equally refuted another allegation in the petition that he sacked 700 workers in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) on assumption of duty as minister, saying he has not sacked nor approved the sack of 700 workers of the Commission.
The minister recalled that on assumption of duty, he was briefed by both the ministry and the NDDC, whose interim administrator at the time complained of a bloated staff strength which made him (the minister) to ask what the interim administrator had done about it.
The minister said after the inaugural briefing, the interim administrator of the NDDC never came back to him on any action he had taken or planned to take on the issue and that whatever he did about “the bloated staff strength” he had complained of had no ministerial approval.
The allegation of non-performance peddled in the same petition is also baseless. The Honourable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs reports to the President, and not to hired petition writers. It is the President that assesses the performance of his ministers, he said./SHARE THIS
- Tags: Umana Okon Umana, Sen. Ayo Akinyelure, Effiong Akwa, NDDC, Niger Delta Ministry