COVID-19: Reps C’ttee queries Water Resources Ministry over for sinking a borehole for N25m

Jonas Ezieke, Abuja

The Public Accounts Committee, PAC, of the  House of Representatives currently investigating Ministries Departments and Agencies MDAs of the Federal Government on the alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 intervention funds from 2020-2022 has queried the Federal Ministry of Water Resources for reportedly sinking  borehole between N25 million  and N12.5million naira per unit describing it as unacceptable

The Committee being Chaired by Hon. Bamidele Salam (Osun,PDP) also picked holes on  the N4bn reportedly spent by the Ministry on the recruitment of 100 personnel for period of three months  for a project known as Youth Engagement for Sanitation (YES) across the 774 local government areas in the country.

The Permanent Secretary, of the Ministry Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack  told  the Committee that the boreholes were sunk in some locations across the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory FCT Abuja

According to the Permanent Secretary,  “in total, 299 new water schemes were embarked upon during the period just as a total of 188 rehabilitations old and abandoned solar boreholes were resuscitated during the period and that  that each state of the federation received 10 million naira intervention items”.

However, with strong dissatisfactions, members  of the Committee took turns to request for existence of such projects in order to ascertain the authenticity and avoid mixing it up with projects earlier executed by members

They also sought to know the modality of recruitment of the personnel, full list of the youths, their account numbers, schedule of payments sent to respective banks and all other documents related to the project.

While speaking, the Chairman of the Committee, Rep Bamidele Salam said,

” what I want this honourable committee to note is that we are going to do project verification. Not only for this Ministry but for other Ministries, Departments and Agencies who have said they have done one project or the other. The Committee will need to go and see exactly what is on ground so that we can have value for money”.

He announced  the states to be visited for the physical verification to include: Osun and Ogun in South West; Akwa Ibom and Edo in South South; Imo and Ebonyi in South East; Kwara, Nasarawa and Benue in North Central; Katsina and Sokoto in North West as and Bauchi and Adamawa in North East.

In addition, the committee ordered the Permanent Secretary to tender all relevant documents related to every contract, procurement and the certificates needed to execute them. on the next date of appearance

This came just as the Committee refused to take the submission of the representatives of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development over the N2 bn intervention funds allocated to it and insisted that its accounting officer must appear before it person

Also the Committee directed the management of the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi Abuja  to reappear before it because of the infractions noticed in the dates of contract awarded by it