The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, says he has uncovered massive fraud and theft perpetrated by the Bauchi State government under Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar, to the tune of N400 billion.
He also stated that the sleazy activities began from May 2015 when he assumed office to date.
Dogara made this allegation, according to a statement in Abuja by his media aide, Turaki Hassan, while speaking at a campaign rally in Dass, headquarters of Dass local government area on Friday.
He also presented documented evidence to a mammoth crowd of his constituents showing how thousands of non-existent people were said to have been employed in 2015 shortly after the governor came into office.
The speaker challenged Abubakar to take him to court, saying he would defend the allegations and that as a lawyer he knows the law and would not level false allegations against anyone if he does not have evidence.
According to the statement, a perusal of one of the documents indicated that not fewer than 1,200 people were said to have been employed and added into the state’s payroll beginning from July 2015.
As a show of evidence, “one of the ghost employees by name, Bappale Adamu, was said to have been born in 1899, which is 120 years ago and started work with the Bauchi state government on July 24, 2015 and will retire from the service in 2023”.
Also, another revelation reportedly showed that all 1,200 workers, though have different names and dates of birth but have the same Bank Verification Number (BVN), meaning that their entire salary was being paid into one and same bank account under different names.
In his words, “The salaries vary from N39,000 to N86,000 and above.
“I wonder how Bauchi State monthly salary skyrocketed from N2.6 billion per month in May 2015 to N7 billion without recruitment of additional workers, especially as the governor had early in his administration, fired thousands of political appointees engaged by former governor Isa Yuguda, which should have reduced the state’s wage bill drastically”.
Dogara also accused the governor of diverting billions of local government funds in the last three and half years.
He disclosed how the governor chased away contractors renovating Dass Central Mosque but failed to renovate it after repeated promises and revealed how he personally paid for the renovation of the mosque.
The speaker also stated that the Bauchi state government had owed workers more than one year salaries following series of verifications allegedly to remove ghost workers from the state’s payroll.
He added, “the present administration at its inception in 2015, the monthly salary bill increased from N2.6 billion to about N7 billion.
“In August 2016, political leaders and stakeholders from the state led by the Speaker sought President Mohammadu Buhari’s intervention on the non-payment of salaries which didn’t yield any result and has been the major source of disagreement between the Speaker, political leaders, stakeholders and the Bauchi state Governor.”
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