The Niger state House of Assembly Ad hoc Committee investigating contract financing loan given to the 25 local government areas, has begun an interface with former local government chairmen over alleged mismanagement of contract financing loan.
Chairman of the Ad hoc Committee, Mr Ahmed Bello (PDP) and member representing Agwara Constituency, said during the interface in Minna on Thursday that the committee was constituted based on a report from the office of Auditor General.
He disclosed that in the report, presented before the house by its Committee on Public Account, indicted nine local government areas for misuse of contract financing loan with no meaningful project executed.
“The house thereafter, constitued an ad hoc committee to investigate how the loan was expended by former local government chairmen.
“We are not using our position to witch-hunt anybody but to investigate the issue that has to do with tax payers resources and to correct some mistakes so that the new councils will not repeat the same mistakes.
“We have seen on many occasions where local government chairmen are not doing things the right way, they are fond of syphoning tax payers resources through some projects that have no direct bearing,” he said.
Bello explained that the report received from the office of Auditor General showed that some of the forner local governments did not utilise the tax payers resources judiciously and did not execute meaningful projects with the loan.
He noted that some former local government chairmen were indicted for mismanagement of the loan meant to provide dividends of democracy to the people, based on the report from the office of auditor general.
Interacting with newsmen shortly after the interface, the Permanent Secretary of Ministry for Local Government, Alhaji Aliyu Abubakar, said that audit was done to ensure that things were in order as well as to see if there were errors and short comings to be corrected.
He expressed hope that the new chairmen would learn from the mistakes of the former chairmen by working in line with financial regulations and advised them to rather take a bank bond instead of the insurance bond for prudence.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the local government areas indicted by the office of auditor General included Agwara, Shiroro, Suleja, Katcha, Wushishi, Tafa, Borgu, Rijau and Bosso. (NAN)
