The Nigerian Senate has accused President Muhammmadu Buhari’s aide of wasting N48 billion of tax payers money since he resumed office in July, 2015. The Senate committee on Niger Delta exposed that he has already spent N157.2m on armoured cars. This is an exclusive report by ThisDay newspapers.

Ahead of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta’s consideration of the 2015 Status Report of the Presidential Amnesty Programme at the Senate today, Nigerian senators have indicated their disapproval of the over N48 billion purportedly spent by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s coordinator of the programme, Brig-Gen. Paul Boro (rtd), since he assumed office last July.
The senators, who preferred not to be named, were particularly concerned over Boro’s purchase of official vehicles for his office for over N157 million as well as the huge sums of money purported to have been expended on the training of ex-militants between November and December last year.
The expenditure, which according to the senators, was listed in the annual status report of the Amnesty Office sent to the Senate Committees on Niger Delta and Public Procurement, have made nonsense of the federal government’s efforts at belt tightening measures, arising from the nation’s dwindling earnings from crude oil.
The annual report, which the two Senate committees would review along with the office’s 2016 budget today, said the senators, indicated that Boro who took over from Hon. Kingsley Kuku as Presidential Adviser on the Amnesty Programme under the current administration, in just five months awarded contracts worth about N48 billion.
Describing most of the contracts awarded by Boro as “mostly nebulous or frivolous”, the senators were particularly irked that at a time Buhari had castigated the National Assembly for its proposal to buy official cars for senators and members of the House of Representatives, the Amnesty Office coordinator, who is just an appointee of the president, had since acquired as his official car, an armoured Lexus LX 570 Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) with communications equipment for VIP movement.
The exotic official car was acquired from Wada Autos Limited at the princely sum of N55 million and full payment has since been made by the Amnesty Office.
“The president claims to be fighting corruption while his aides are already swimming in corruption. Can you imagine a Special Adviser using a bullet proof Lexus car worth N55 million as an official car at a time the president is trying to stop us from buying our own official cars worth about N5 million each? So what happened to the monetisation policy of the federal government?” queried an irate senator, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta.
The report before the two Senate committees and sighted by ThisDay also indicated that Boro had further acquired for his office from Globe Motors Limited, the following cars: one Toyota Land Cruiser VX V8 at the cost of N25.85 million; four Toyota Camry 3.5L V6 cars and four Toyota Hilux 4WD buses at the total sum of N75.35 million. Globe Motors has since been paid fully the sum.
Some of the senators complained that a thorough analysis of contract documents attached to the report showed that at a time Nigeria is experiencing perhaps its worst economic downturn in recent times, Buhari’s adviser on the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme appears only concerned about awarding “frivolous” contracts.

“We expected him to restructure the budget he inherited from his predecessor at the Amnesty Office to fit into current economic realities and in line with the anti-corruption crusade of President Buhari. Unfortunately Boro is just spending recklessly,” lamented another senator who did not want to be named.
Credible sources at the Amnesty Office, however, confided in ThisDay that Boro began the contract awards in November 2015 apparently to beat the December 31 deadline for the return of unspent monies to the treasury, as stipulated by the extant financial regulations in Nigeria.
The nation’s financial regulations stipulate that unspent appropriated funds be returned to the treasury after December 31 every year. However, the federal government made exemptions for the funding of capital projects to continue till March 2016.
Latching on to the need to “empower” already trained Niger Delta ex-agitators, ThisDay sources claimed that some of the contracts did not follow established guidelines for awards.
A source said: “In several instances, the same contractors used by the former administration of Kingsley Kuku, who already had due clearance from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) were rushed in to handle the so-called empowerment contracts.”
According to an angry senator, the contract awards occurred in spite of the fact that several of the Amnesty Programme’s trainees in universities abroad were either stranded or had been repatriated due to their inability to meet with their financial obligations to their schools.
The senator said his investigations had revealed that under the guise that there was no money to pay the ex-militants’ tuition and in-training allowances, Boro had ordered the students in universities in the UK, United States of America, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Russia, the Philippines, Belarus and elsewhere abroad, to return to Nigeria.
“Several of them have since returned and are on the verge of being placed in Nigerian universities to continue their education. The Amnesty Office cannot afford to deploy or maintain delegates offshore anymore,” he quoted a senior official of the Education Department of the Amnesty Office as saying.
The senator said officials of the Amnesty Office told him that N510 million was paid to an institution, Westerfield Colleges, to prepare 150 students for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
This transaction, according to him, stipulated that over a period spanning just two months, Westerfield Colleges would prepare the students for the UTME organised by JAMB at a cost of N3.4 million per delegate.
“The same Boro who has been telling Nigerians that the Amnesty Office does not have money to fund the education of students abroad is the one awarding a contract worth N510 million to an institution to organise JAMB classes for fresh students. This is really very silly and embarrassing,” he said.
Even more curious, he claimed, was the fact that the payment of the N510 million by the Amnesty Office was not treated as a contract, hence no award letter was issued to Westerfield.
Rather, the senator further claimed, Boro in glaring breach of the Procurement Act and other extant financial regulations of the federal government, ordered that the payment to Westerfield be passed off as a direct payment to a school and students.
Efforts to reach Boro and his media consultant, Mr. Owei Lakemfa, failed, as neither of them responded to calls to their mobile phones. A text sent to Lakemfa’s phone was also not replied.

Source: http://www.nigerianmonitor.com/2016/02/11/how-buharis-aide-spent-n48bn-in-5-months-including-purchase-of-armoured-cars-worth-n157-2m/

A link to Thisday Newspaper please.

K

I have been reviewing Buhari's some what stupidity and have found that in every nonsense he has done so far as president there is some sense in it.

By deliberately not appointing supervising ministers, Buhari unleashed his cronies and henchmen on the civil service were they bled it dry.

They intimidated Directors and Permsecs of MDAs with threats of sack or corruption in order to have them re-contract dubious contracts from were they fleeced Nigeria dry.

How can we explain that nearly 10mths into his adminstration political appointees in MDAs from the last adminstration have yet to be removed and replaced by those loyal to the APC?

The only thing he did after accepting resignations from GEJ appointed ministers was to dissolve boards of parastatals but left chief executives and directors who he ordered to compensate his hungry CPC comrades who have been out in the cold since the days of Abacha.


The 2015 inherited budget was never adhered to and we all saw how fashola washed his hands from the 4bn naira mobilization fee scam for road contracts with no single centimeter of road constructed so far. Fashola told a congressional hearing on budget defense that the monies were not approved by him but were done before he was appointed minister. Note; fashola did not adhere to the APC blame game by accusing Jonathan's adminstration but merely stated that he was not aware of such payments . It is also important to note that the committee was reviewing expenditures for 2015 in consideration of the 2016 budget and wanted explanation from fashola why no work was recorded after it was found out that 4bn naira was appropriated for 2015 and disbursed by his ministry in the same year to road contractors who never mobolised to site .

The Buhari govt will later still approach the national assembly to approve 2 trillion naira as supplementary budget financed from loans with nothing on ground to show for in 2015.

Their latest scam now is to discredit the IPPIS initiative by throwing allegations of ghost workers in order to appoint another private firm to oversee salary renumerations for the federal civil service from where more ghost workers will be created.

This govt is filled with Abacha era apologists and cronies who are bent on amassing as much wealth to themselves as they can under the dullard who they chose to support for the presidency because of his gross ignorance and foolishness.

Nigeria is doomed.

My God this is too much

Buhari in 4 years will do more damage to Nigeria than PDP in 16. Just watch and see.

These thieves are using Buhari's age and ignorance against him. From the budget they all deny making to the extreme costs of splurging they do with casting about the lack of money.

I guess this isn't corruption and stealing, eh? Just as long as you are APC. Lol, people will suffer oo

lol which one is Nigerian monitor lizard again abeg give us credible link

corruption is really fighting back. pls next story