Business activities were on Wednesday disrupted at the headquarters of the National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND) by workers accusing the agency of mismanagement and embezzlement of funds running into about N700m.

The workers are also protesting the failure of successive governments to make a pronouncement over the status of the organisation almost 16 years after President Obasanjo muted the idea of merger of Development Finance Institutions comprising NERFUND, and Bank of Industry and others.

They chanted protest songs and carried placards with several inscriptions such as “We want to know our stand before NERFUND becomes No-fund”; “End staff victimisation, we too need change”; “Executive management just go, tenure expired since 2014. Please go.”

They also claimed that although NERFUND did not make the merger, it had been left dormant since 2000 while some people in the management “feast on its meager resources”.

Addressing journalists during the protest, one of the workers who gave his name as Joseph Ngati said that the workers were also protesting the absence of a substantive Executive Management as the status of the current one is negatively affecting loan recovery efforts.

He said, “The staff members are protesting the failure of government to appoint a substantive Chief Executive to oversee affairs of the organisation after the expiration of the one-year term granted the present Executive Management that was seconded from the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation and Central Bank of Nigeria in October 2013.

FOR MORE: http://theicon.ng/2016/06/01/workers-ground-activities-at-nerfund-accuse-management-of-corruption/

Very bad