Magnus Kpakol and the KEKE NAPEP scam

By Nicholas Ibekwe

January 23, 2011 08:25AM

In 2000, after a chance meeting with former president Olusegun Obasanjo, the Chief Executive of Autobahn Techniques Limited (trademark owners of the name KEKE NAPEP) Ofili Okonkwo, convinced the former head of state that the KEKE NAPEP project could be a veritable tool for wealth creation and poverty alleviation. Thus was the marriage between the federal government and Autobahn consummated. According to the term of the partnership, Autobahn was to implement and develop the project while the presidency is expected to provide the requsite fund through the office of NAPEP.

“The first stage of the programme targeted at the reclamation of at least 10,000 youth drawn from all states of the federation of Nigeria including the federal capital territory during the experimental period”, explained Mr. Okonkwo. “This will translate in the provision by government, of at least 1000 units of tricycles”.

The project was designed such that the tricycles are subsidised by the government and each recipient is expected to pay off the subsidy over an agreed period of time.

According to information available to NEXT, the project set off smoothly. The first two phases which required the contractor to supply 2000 units of tricycles were completed on scheduled and all the government discounted amount fully recovered.

Unlike these two however, the execution of the third phase was fraught with problems; especially as the whole poverty eradication programme was experiencing a nosedive. During a plenary on 18th February, 2009, the Senate, after debating on a motion titled “The Dismal Performance of National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP)” directed its committee on National Planning, Economic Affair and Poverty Alleviation to conduct an investigation into the activities of NAPEP.

The revelations of the Senate committee were sordid.

The senate committee’s investigations discovered that “the collection and distribution of the assembled tricycles was surrounded with lots of shoddy manipulations between NAPEP, the Initiative for Peace Empowerment and Tolerance International (IPET) and the KEKE NAPEP Owners Riders Association of Nigerian (KORAN)”.

The report further discovered cases of diversion of funds; unqualified and unregistered micro-finance institutions engaged by NAPEP in the disbursement of funds to beneficiaries, and the use of fake names and unverifiable addresses.

Kpakol’s shady schemes

First, it became apparent that Mr.Kpakol, who was appointed co-ordinator at the twilight of the second phase of the project, was not favourably disposed towards the manner the first two phases was executed. He orchestrated series of devious schemes aimed towards the commercialisation of the project for personal gains.

After a period of unexplained delay in the commencement of the third phase, the contract for the supply of 5000 units of tricycles at the total sum of N2.4 billion was signed and NAPEP was instructed to render the payment in full. Mr. Kpakol, according to Autobahn, deliberately delayed the payment of the contract fee by twice issuing the contractor dud cheques.

“It was not until May 2007 at the threat of lodging a report to the President for the issuance of dud cheques, that Mr. Kpakol finally caused a cash draft for the payment to be made by NAPEP”, said Autobahn.

Further, it was alleged that Mr. Kpakol refused to procure the duty and VAT waivers for the job as stipulated in the contract and thereby put unnecessary financial obligation on the contractor.

Autobahn also alleged that in an attempt to appropriate the project, Mr. Kpakol connived with the manufacturers of the product. According to them, this was evident in the sudden uncooperative behaviour of their former partners in India and Italy. According to Autobahn, Piaggio Italy and India became hostile and this was curious because after the completion of the first two phases of the project, Piaggio Italy awarded Mr. Okonkwo a special commemorative plaque for ordering 4000 units of tricycles, the first time a single company would order tricycles of that quantity. For the same reason, Piaggio India also awarded him a special gold coin. Once Mr. Kpakol interfered Autobahn says, the companies became hostile.

On three occasions Piaggio increased the price per unit of tricycles and when the contractor agreed to Piaggio’s inflated offer, the manufacturer said it was no longer interested in supplying the contractor and curiously suggested that the contract money be returned to the Nigerian government.

However, after several appeals to Piaggio, the company eventually accepted to supply just 500 units at $2500 (N375,000) per unit as opposed to the original price of $1850 (N277,500) per unit. Autobahn further alleged that Mr. Kpakol, bent on excluding them from the fourth phase of the project, approached their new supplier, ATUL, in the same fashion he did the former supplier, Piaggio. ATUL wrote informing Autobahn that its contract with Autobahn has expired even while ATUL is yet to completely supply all the components it is required to in the contract as shown by correspondence made available to NEXT.

The connection between ATUL and NAPEP became clear upon the advertisement for the bids for the fourth phase. The specification advertised by NAPEP was exactly ATUL’s brand specification for its tricycles. “The published specifications which will be relied on are entirely peculiar to ATUL and to no other manufacturer. Thus NAPEP had already decided what brand and by whom the next order would favour”,

Autobahn alleged. Yet another pointer to Mr. Kpakol’s little scheme to commercialise the project is while calling for tenders for the fourth phase of the project, with the hindsight that Autobahn is the registered trademark owners of the term “KEKE NAPEP”, NAPEP changed the name to Three Wheel Trucks/Tricycles.

Next investigations discovered that among the four companies pre-qualified for the supply of the fourth phase of the project, the files of two of them (Kleen Gee Concept and Charlie Memok Nigeria Limited) at the Corporate Affair Commission were completely empty as all information about these two companies have been removed.

Several efforts made by NEXT to contact Mr. Kpakol for his reaction to these allegations proved futile. Mr. Kpakol did not answer our calls and refused to respond to text messages sent to his phone number.

However, according to an interview titled, “N2.4 Billion Keke NAPEP saga, My Story - Kpakol” published on the NAPEP official website, Mr. Kpakol completely denied ever planning to subvert the project for his personal gains.

While describing Mr. Okonkwo as unpatriotic and sponsoring a smear campaign against him in newspapers, Mr. Kpakol denied ever issuing Autobahn bounced cheques.

“That is preposterous in thinking”, he said. “I’ve never seen a NAPEP Cheque book in my life. I was also Chief Economic Adviser to the President and Head of National Planning, I never saw a National Planning Commission cheque book; I don’t know if it is brown, or green or red, I guess most minister don’t see cheque books. So I don’t know how I can send him a bounced cheque. But they all write in the press, ‘oh the guy sent him a bounced cheque.’ I don’t write cheques, and even the Secretary of the Programme does not write cheques”.

However, NEXT is in possession of a copy a NAPEP Micro Credit Account Equatorial Trust Bank cheque with the account number 0990008903816 and cheque number 02318043 dated 10 May, 2007 issued to Autobahn Technique Limited with the instruction to pay N2,250,000,000 (N2.25 billion) purportedly issued by NAPEP.

When asked if the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), is investigating Mr. Kpakol based on the overwhelming accusation against him, Femi Babafemi, Spokesperson for the anti-graft commission after a long pause, described our question as speculative, saying he cannot answer it.

IPET’s involvement

Mr. Kpakol still pursuing his scheme of commercialising a project that was originally meant to eradicate poverty secured the services of an unregistered non-governmental organisation (NGO), Initiative for Peace Empowerment and Tolerance International (IPET) for the distribution of the assembled tricycles.

The Senate investigative committee discovered that IPET “sold the KEKEs at a higher rate in the open market, thereby denying the targeted beneficiaries from benefiting”. The Senate committee further noted that the phrase “ ‘KORAN or any other grassroots based organisation’ when seeking for the approval of Mr. President for the distribution of the KEKEs was deliberately chosen in order to engage IPET for the exercise even before it was registered with the Corporate Affair Commission”.

According to the Senate committee report,”In a paid advert in This Day newspaper of June 16th, 2008; NAPEP urged the general public interested in the KEKEs to deal with IPET (which was not registered then) on the strength of which Kebbi State Government paid thirty-five million seven hundred and ninety-two three hundred and two naira fifty kobo (N35,792,302.50)”.

Next investigation also found that the 39, Adediran Ajao Crescent, Ajao Estate, Anthony Village, the official address of IPET is a residential apartment. The occupants of the premises told our reporter that at no time was the building occupied by IPET or Jacqueline Offiah.

The whereabouts of Mrs. Offiah is unknown but unconfirmed information suggested that she has been apprehended by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).

Next week we examine how funds meant for poverty alleviation were used to finance a private company owned by a factional leader of KORAN and how this was made possible by the leadership of napep

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5665060-146/magnus_kpakol_and_the_keke_napep.csp