A Committee set up by Bauchi State Government to recover property illegally allocated to individuals by the immediate past administration in the state, says it has recovered 64 Vehicles out of over 100 vehicles listed for recovery.
Air Commodore Ahmed Tijjani-Baba, (Rtd), Chairman of the committee, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday that the vehicles were recovered from highly placed individuals, politicians, former commissioners, special advisers and top civil servants.
He said that the vehicles were allocated to the beneficiaries by the last administration on May 28, 2015, a day to the swearing-in of the incumbent, Mohammed Abubakar.
He said that the committee discovered that the vehicles were purchased by the last administration between January and May 2015, and were auctioned to the beneficiaries without following the due process.
Tijjani-Baba quoted a regulation which states that “any vehicle that is not used for over three years has to be reverted to the service pool while the officer is leaving office.”
He said that regulation was illegally amended by the last administration in 2010, granting the state governor waiver powers to auction vehicles used below three years.
“The clue gives him right to auction the vehicles upon an application by an allottee, but it has to be referred to the board of survey that will determine the price to be paid.
“A highly placed government official wrote on behalf of 10 other beneficiaries on May 28, 2015, without referring it to board of survey, the body vested with the responsibility of auctioning such vehicles that were bought five months ago.” he said.
He said that some of the beneficiaries, who discovered that the auction exercise was faulty, voluntarily returned the vehicles to the committee.
The chairman assured that the committee would ensure that all vehicles illegally auctioned, were recovered.
He said that in spite of threats issued by some of the beneficiaries, his committee would not relent in its effort at recovering all vehicles auctioned illegally.
NAN
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