Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi

… Another says Hadiza’s determination to positively impact may be her undoing***

A trucker and a Chieftain of the haulage industry has alleged that the current E-Call-up system, popularly called ETO has actually transformed into a mere money collection venture, where an initial N10,000 per truck transaction has percolated into N30,000 truck’s single entry business.

“Both the NPA and the Eto stinks!” the haulage operator stated, alleging that the creation totally violated the Public procurement Act, because those who won the bid neither bidded, not emerged preferred bidders.

“They didn’t bid for Eto and they didn’t bid the Truck Transit Park. Yet, they emerged bid winners”, he alleged, adding that when the advert for Eto was published in October, 2018, the idea was that the preferred bidders would begin operation, by August 2019. According to him, those who finally hijacked the TTP and the Eto presently, were not even in the picture.

Presently, the organisation of Eto has Uniquely crewed in a way that  enables the Authority collect the money, while the Lagos State Government do all the job.

Speaking in the same vein, an NPA worker lamented how the resources of the Authority became so badly managed to enable management convert the publication of the in-house magazine, The Port Today gulp over N360 million.

“I know much about that magazine, because I worked under Chief Michael Kayode Ajayi who conceived and gave birth to the magazine.

“He started The Port Today with nothing from the Authority, and he turned the in-house publication to a self-funded, self sustaining magazine, meeting all expenses from adverts collection generated from the magazine.

“Let me tell you something: when Chief Ajayi was going, he left behind about N10 million, out of which N6m was fixed!”

“So, how can anyone say over N369m was expended, on The Port Today, except the person is talking in terms the magazine being also used as a conduit pipe!” the worker explained further, speaking on condition of strict anonymity.

Another stakeholder, Samuel Egbewole has however asked Nigerians to pray for the NPA, particularly the Managing Director, Hadiza Bala Usman, noting that her boldness, and determination to positively impact the system, could have created the present trouble.

But, while the above might actually amount to a tip of the iceberg, a source disclosed further that Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi who was starving off the hawks from tearing up Hadiza, gained upper hand on Amaechi, and pressurized the Minister, to let Hadiza face the music of over N160bn allegedly said to be unaccounted for.

Said a Source to Maritime First: “Amaechi had been starving off the hawks, but after the Managing Director ran the roughshod with Amaechi, following the board selection, in which the Minister’s man was unceremoniously humiliated, Amaechi decided to allow a free fall”, our source alleged, noting that, the door was subsequently opened.

* A copy of the letter from the Federal Ministry of Transportation, which approval, allegedly enabled the expected ‘free fall’.

In a related development, the Per Second News has provided below, an insight into how some N20bn, out of the over N100bn of the materials for the looming probe was accumulated.

ENDS

HADIZA BALA USMAN IN N20 BILLION NPA CONTRACT FRAUD

written by Our Reporter

The Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Bala Usman, has been accused of corruption and abuse of office, in what could potentially be the latest scandal to rock the NPA.

Investigation shows how spending under Hadiza Usman keeps rising even as the NPA flunks its audit.

The fraud which runs into billions of naira was uncovered by an ‘audit query’ of activities of the NPA between 2016 and 2018, Per Second News gathered.

The Auditor General’s Office concluded, however, that the NPA’s financial records were riddled with so many bookkeeping deficiencies, irregularities, and errors that a reliable audit was simply impossible.

The office of the Auditor General of the Federation also came hard on the NPA boss for gross “betrayal of public trust” as demonstrated by her flagrant abuse for due process in the way and manner she runs the agency, citing documents obtained by this newspaper.

NPA Managing Director, Hadiza Bala Usman

Highlights of the damning report from the office of the Auditor General of the Federation include her refusal to remit VAT deductions running into billions of naira and in foreign currency denomination to the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

For instance, the query highlighted unremitted deduction to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to include N3,667,750,470. $148,845,745.04, Euro 4,891,449.50 and £252,682.14.

The NPA under Hadiza Bala Usman was also accused of” excessive increase in administrative operational expenses” extra budgetary expenditures on hotel accommodation and under disclosure of expenditures on hotel expenses”, Corporate social Responsibility Projects, diversion of funds through the Nigerian Port Today, to the sponsorship of National Assembly Programmes, amongst other.

The queries which covered over 100 issues, also asked Hadiza Bala Usman to make various refunds to government, especially in instances where such expenditures could not be justified.

Investigation also uncovers that the Audit team reviewed NPA’s policy on implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility Projects/ Programmes and discovered that records relating to CSR fell short of the level of compliance with the Public procurement Act 2007.

In 2016, the NPA spent N286,412,628.00 on CSR while in 2017, the figure rose to N2,496,248,775.00 and N5billion in 2018. The Audit team found out that “beneficiary needs were not properly assessed or identified before the implementation of CSR projects/ programmes.

The Audit team observed to its chagrin that  there was no evidence of compliance with public procurement Act and that most of the CSR projects/ programmes were inflated and accordingly ordered that the “sum of N5.18 billion should be recovered from the Managing Director of NPA, being the value of, inflated amount under her watch.

NPA logo

The committee also observed that delivery of CSR items were not accompanied with delivery letters and that in most cases, there was no evidence of actual items delivered and who signed for them.

Per Second News gathered that the NPA boss and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the government and drive the NPA’s budgets ever higher, regardless of port necessity.

The NPA has literally been making up numbers in its annual financial reports to the National Assembly—representing billions of dollars’ worth of seemingly nonexistent transactions—knowing that the National Assembly would rely on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the Authority.

The fraud works like this, for instance while a contract with Ref. HQ/GM/PROC/CON/C.11/PBT/16/322 dated 16/10/17 was awarded in favour of Messrs Ecomaxx Engineering Projects Ltd for the supply of items to the old people’s Home Yaba, Lagos to the tune of  N19,760,460.00 which was paid vide invoice no HQ/CS/0711 dated 01/06/17 there was no documentary evidence that the items were indeed delivered to the Home.

In the same vein, the contract for supply of items to Yaba children’s orphanage followed the same pattern.

For instance, whilst a contract awarded in favour of Trans-secure Ltd was N19,467,000.00 the survey conducted by the audit team found out that N6,520,500.00 was the actual market price.

This NPA expenditure fraud is déjà vu all over again for Spinney, prompting the office of the AGuF to demand an explanation from Hadiza Bala Usman reasons for the sharp excessive increase in the Authority’s expenditure profile between 2016 and 2018.

“It was observed that total expenditure by the Authority increased astronomically by 128% from N87.47 billion in 2016 to N198.98 billion in 2017. Of particular concern was the administrative expenses which increased by 72% from N26.126 billion in 2016 to N44.93 billion in 2017.

Among the laundering tactics uncovered by the Audit Query revealed that whereas in 2016 N22.16 billion was expended  on revenue monitoring, the amount rose to a whopping N1.06 billion in 2017, an increase of over 4,689%. Similarly, overseas training rose from N20.48 million in 2016 to N470 million, an increase of over 2194%.

Also, whereas N15.31 million was spent on vessels/craft in 2016, the amount rose to N117.4 million in 2017, an increase of 666%.

The excessive expenditure of pollution control also attracted the scrutiny of the auditors who insisted that Hadiza Bala Usman must tell Nigerians why and how N4.2 billion was spent in 2017 as against N29 million in 2016, an increase of 14,310 %.

Also read: NPA: Roforofo fight brews, following Hadiza’s sack by Buhari

Other over bloated increase in expenditure include local and foreign medical expenses, legal fees, Corporate souvenirs and expenditure on other government agencies which rose from N50.29 million in 2016 to N338.59 million in 2017, a 573 per cent rise.

The Audit also raised its yellow flag on an alleged “diversion of N369.71 million through the Nigerian Ports Today” the official in-house magazine of the NPA.

“Payments to Nigerian Ports Today were reviewed to confirm whether they were properly initiated, authorised processed, documented and paid in line with the Public procurement Act 2007,”the report said.

However “findings revealed the sum of N369,718,130.82 was paid to Nigerian Ports Today, a Limited liability company that is fully owned and controlled by NPA during the period under review.

There was no evidence of contractual relationship in the form of award of contract to the company nor was there anything to show the company rendered services to the Authority to justify these payments and concludes that the Authority paid the company without a contract and thereby contravening the Public procurement Act 2007, and that this was viewed as a means to divert public funds,” the report alleged.

The Audit query also took serious exceptions to various expenditure incurred by the NPA on behalf of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi for which a whopping $604,598.95 was paid without supporting documents .

Hadiza Bala Usman was asked to refund the said sum into government treasury. Usually dependable source at the office of the Audit General of the Federation told Shipping World that the Audit queries cuts across all units and departments of the agency and that massive over invoicing and flagrant disregard for due process were uncovered.

In all, at least a mind-boggling N20 billion of NPA’s financial transactions between 2016 and 2018 could not be traced, documented, or explained.

*With additional report from Per Second News