The Managing Director of the North-East Development Commission, Mr Mohammed Alkali, is enmeshed in contracts scandals running into billions of naira, a group has alleged.
He is also alleged of his flagrant disdain for due process, transparency and the rule of law in the award of over-inflated contracts running into billions of naira by him without recourse to the board.
The group — Coalition of New Nigeria Transparency and Anti-Corruption (CNNTAC) — has therefore raised an alarm over the alleged corrupt practices and high-handedness in the recently established North-East Development Commission.
Calling on the Presidency and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to intervene by launching a probe into NEDC, the group said the further delay will ruin the organization.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on May 8, 2019, inaugurated the NEDC Board.
In a statement by its Secretary, Tijani Umar, on Thursday, the group queried how about N100 billion disbursed to the commission barely one year ago was squandered without any significant impact on the refugees in the zone.
They equally fingered the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Umar Farouq, in a deal with Alkali for illegally taking about N5 billion recently to purchase vehicles for the military against its scope of operation and board’s approval.
“We are in possession of other documents showing the purchases of choice properties by close staff and associates of the MD in highbrow neighbourhoods of Abuja, Kaduna and Maiduguri which can be traced to over-inflated and non-existent contracts.
“Another massive corruption scheme is on the verge of being implemented in the name of a housing estate in Maiduguri without the board’s knowledge and approval.
“About N5bn has allegedly been spent on COVID-19 supplies without the approval of the board. The MD single-handedly took care of all the Coronavirus supplies. There is massive contract-splitting in the commission,” the statement said.
“Alkali has been executing projects in Borno and Yobe states without the board’s approval and the projects are not in the budget.
“He boasts that there is money and since he gets money from the Ecological Fund, single-digit per cent of VAT and 10 per cent of anything FG gives the North-Eastern states. With these monies the MD has embarked spending spree,” a ministry official said Friday.
The group discovered the MD had by-passed the board Chairman, retired Maj.-Gen. Paul Tarfa, who had demonstrated a lack of capacity to run the commission.
However, a senior official of the commission, who did not want to be identified, denied the allegations, saying “we are all working to meet the mandate given to us by the Federal Government to rebuild the North-East region. The zone had witnessed massive destruction of schools, houses and other public buildings as a result of the activities of Boko Haram terrorists.
