- Appoints son major contractor, brother as TA in-charge of procurement

- As fresh N342m financial scandal rocks agency


Fresh crisis is currently rocking the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture Lending (NIRSAL) over allegations of corruption, fraud and lack of transparency by its managing director, Mr. Aliyu Abbati Abdulhammed.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.witnessngr.com/corruption-nirsal-boils-as-md-abdulhammed-allegedly-turns-agency-into-family-business/

NIRSAL, an initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Bankers Committee (BC) and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (FMA&RD), incorporated as a public limited liability company (PLC) and licensed as a non-bank financial institution (NBFI) is tasked with the primary mandate of facilitating the flow of credit to agribusiness value chain players and collaborating with stakeholders to fix broken agricultural value chains in Nigeria.

As against the mandate of NIRSAL, the managing director, Mr. Abdulhammed is said to have turned the agency into his family business favouring his family members and friends. He is alleged to have appointed his younger brother, Babangida Abdulhammed as his technical assistant, handling all procurement related matters, effectively usurping the functions of the procurement department of NIRSAL. Sources alleged that Babangida singlehandedly decides how contracts are awarded at NIRSAL and who gets them.

As if that was not enough, the son of the managing director, Imran Abdulhammed, is the sole supplier of office equipment including desktop computers, laptops, etc. at exorbitant prices.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.witnessngr.com/corruption-nirsal-boils-as-md-abdulhammed-allegedly-turns-agency-into-family-business/

Investigations also revealed that the managing director circumvents the usual routes in procurement. A staff of the apex bank, who is one of his relatives, has been fingered in some wild infractions including backdating of documentations for several monies that had been spent to secure board approvals. It was further learnt that Mr. Abdulhammed singlehandedly appoints contractors who work with the company. Nextzone, Blue Accord, Global Knowledge consulting are some of the firms allegedly linked to him by sources.

The lack of transparency in the workings of the NIRSAL leaves much to be desired. Besides the fact that it makes nonsense of the president’s anti-corruption crusade, it further exposes the current government’s inability to adequately monitor public officers. For instance, contrary to government’s directive placing ban on foreign trainings, NIRSAL had sent some staff on trainings abroad, including a particular one in South Africa, described as jamboree by a member of staff who was part of the training.

“It was a shabby exercise and a total waste of public resources,” the staff said. He is also accused of flying in first class on foreign airlines. Amongst other things, the managing director was accused of not keeping adequate records of financial transactions and commitments relating to inflow, expenditure and disbursements. NIRSAL has accumulated bad credit guarantees running into billions of naira, while the farmers are yet to benefit.

Another issue causing ripples in the agency is how the managing director allegedly misappropriated a princely N342 million released to NIRSAL by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under its Anchor Borrowers’ programme (ABP) for a Southwest maize farmers’ cooperative, Hope Concept Investment Cooperatives and Credit Union.

The fund, which was approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria and released in July last year to NIRSAL, for onward disbursement to about 1,800 small holders’ farmers that make up the union, was for preparation of land and planting of maize during the rainy season.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.witnessngr.com/corruption-nirsal-boils-as-md-abdulhammed-allegedly-turns-agency-into-family-business/

All these agencies are conduit for looting the nations wealth