The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has begun investigation into allegation of budget padding raised by former Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jubrin, against the leadership of the National Assembly.
Jibrin had accused Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and three other principal officers of padding the 2016 budget.
Dogara met behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, yesterday.
Vanguard reports that EFCC yesterday summoned Directors of Finance and Administrations in 16 Federal Ministries yesterday for questioning after receiving copies of the budget from clerk of National Assembly.
A source told the newspaper that “On Thursday, we took time to question no fewer than 16 Directors of Finance and Administrations of 16 Federal Ministries in Abuja and the outcome of the quiz will certainly lead take us to somewhere in resolving the issue of budget padding in Nigeria.
“We decided to invite the key officials for questioning after analyzing the original proposals from the ministries and appropriations from the National Assembly between 2012 and 2016.
“The truth of the matter is that once the petition was received, the commission wrote to all the ministries to submit the original copies of their budget proposals from 2012 to 2016 and the versions approved by the National Assembly within the period.
“The documents were subjected to rigorous comparative analyses. The analyses indicate the projects that were inserted into the budget.
“The commission taking a closer look at the inserted projects with a view to determining the persons responsible for the insertion and to determine if the projects were actually executed.
“Already our investigation has revealed the identities of companies that allegedly got contracts to execute most of the inserted projects.
“What we are trying to achieve at the moment is determining the identities behind the companies through the Corporate Affairs Commission and there will also be on site inspection of the projects to determine whether they were actually executed.
“Detailed accounts of the companies are also being collected for analysis,’’ while the commission was in the process of inviting the contractors.
The EFCC has already questioned Honourable Abdulmumin Jubrin who blew the whistle on the budget padding scandal as well as other persons who wrote petitions against Jubrin.
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