Niger ex council chairmen disagree with auditor General reports on contract financing loan
The former local government chairmen of Niger state have disagreed with the report from the office of Auditor General of alleged mismanagement of contract financing loan secured for the 25 local governments areas to execute projects.
The chairmen said this during an interface with the Niger state House Assembly Ad-hoc committee investigating contract financing loan given to local government areas to execute people’s orientated projects in their various councils.
The ad-hoc committee was constituted by house of assembly after receiving report from the office of Auditor General alleging that some of the former council chairmen did not utilise the loan judiciously.
Mr Ibrahim Mami, former Chairman of Tafa, however disagreed with the report from of Auditor General that his council didn’t execute projects with the contract financing loan, adding that the loan was used to provide dividends of democracy to the people of the council.
“What the report said and what the new chairman of Tafa said is their own perspective and understanding, but we used the resources to provide dividends of democracy to our people,” he said.
He disclosed that part of the money was used to purchase transformers and fifty motorcycles for security agencies as well as some village heads to address security challenges that was bedeviling the area.
Similarly, former Chairman of Rijau, Alhaji Bello Bako, while responding to the ad-hoc committee, disclosed that the contract financing loan was not given to the council but was disbursed to the contractors handling the projects directly by the bank.
Also, former Chairman of Suleja, Abdullahi Maje, said that in the course of executing the projects, some of the contractors complained of variations in the cost of materials which led to incompletion of some projects.
He disclosed that the council sourced for resources from its internally generated revenue to complete some projects such as the renovation of local education authority office, electrification and police station.
Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee Investigating Contract Financing Loan, Mr Bello Ahmed (PPA-Agwara), said that the office of Auditor General and the committee were not out to witch-hunt anybody, but were only discharging their responsibilities.
He said the inability of some council areas to complete some projects was not totally the fault of the chairmen, but as a result of complaints they received from the contractors of variation in cost of materials due to inflation.
Ahmed said the committee would invite the contractors to come with necessary documents and explain why they were unable to complete the projects and why the level of implementation of the projects do not commiserate with the resources released to them.
