Mohammed Bello, permanent secretary of the ministry of
science and technology, has denied the allegation of financial misconduct made
against him.
The federal government had issued a query to Bello over
alleged financial misconduct while he was the permanent secretary of the
federal ministry of agriculture and rural development.
He was accused of purchasing an uncompleted building for N7
billion without following due process.
But in a response to the query, Bello said Sabo Nanono,
minister of agriculture, and the federal executive council (FEC) approved the
purchase of the building.
In a letter dated May 14, he said all the financial
transactions made while he was at the ministry of agriculture followed due
process.
“While denying in totality all the allegations, I hereby
forward my representations and response to all the false allegations contained
in the query,” the permanent secretary said.
“I am constrained to give details of the transactions I
approved to set the record straight and clear my name. I will like state the
following that all transactions at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development were approved through Administrative process and principles as
traditioned in the conduct of government business.
“That FMARD run a rolling budget year in year out as most
projects are been captured as ongoing; that all contracts/procurement and
payments at the FMARD followed due process. There are procedures for
contracts/procurement and payments handled by various departments in all
government agencies, FMARD inclusive.
“That my tenure as Permanent Secretary at FMARD commenced
from 10th January, 2019 to 18th December, 2019 and hence cannot be held
responsible or liable for actions prior to 10th January, 2019.
“I state that contractors were dully paid. The allegation of
contractors not been paid is totally false. All contractors whose contract was
captured in the 2018 budgetary allocation were paid in accordance to budgetary
releases. However, contractors whose contracts are ongoing were rolled over as
ongoing. Rollover capital projects are not new in contract management.
“I will state that due process was followed to the latter in
the purchase of the said building. After submission of recommendation to the
Hon. Minister of Agriculture; He approved that Council Memo be made to that
effect. We then sent the Memo to the Secretary to Government of the Federation
who then scheduled it for Federal Executive Council Approval. Consequently, the
Federal Executive Council approved the purchase of the building.”
Bello accused the agriculture minister and Mu’azu
Abdulkadir, the current permanent secretary of the ministry, of being
responsible for the allegations against him.
“These are the same people alleging that the purchased
office building was unfit for use,” he said.
“It is worthy of note at this point that it is the current
Permanent Secretary FMARD who is actually guilty of virement as since after the
approval of the above contracts has refused to sign and release letters of
award of contract to the respective contractors but instead diverted and vire
the funds to other projects in his locality that were never part of the
appropriation, neither advertised nor bided for. This is a case of unequivocal
virement.”
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