The Minister of Works, David Umahi, on Wednesday said he was not minister when the alleged financial irregularities resulting in the misappropriation of about N4.64 billion was carried out in the ministry.
An audit contained in the Auditor-General of the Federation’s Annual Report had reportedly unravelled the amount under the erstwhile Federal Ministry of Works (Housing Section).
The report detailed several issues, including payments made without proper documentation, extra-budgetary expenditures, mobilisation fees exceeding approved thresholds, and contracts awarded without following due process.
However, in a statement on Wednesday, the spokesman to Umahi, Mr Uchenna Orji, described the use of the current minister’s picture and name in the publication as a piece of petty and self-serving propaganda.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the publication, which is sponsored and circulated in different social media platforms, is nothing but an intentional, fraudulent, and mischievous misrepresentation of the inviolable report of the Auditor- General of the Federation.
“The report was said to have investigated the financial management of the then Federal Ministry of Works and Housing between the period of 2020 and 2021 financial year and indicted the Housing Sector of the Ministry of financial mismanagement and unauthorised expenditure totalling N4.64 billon.
“While we know the intention of these detractors, we are surprised that they could be so petty as to brazenly and unconscionably put the picture and the name of the serving minister of works,” the statement added.
The statement stressed that the name of the minister was used in the caption of the national newspaper to create an impression to the gullible and unsuspecting readers that the person referred to was Umahi.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the investigation was said to have been made on the financial management of the ministry under the previous administration and not under the Renewed Hope administration,” the minister stated.
Umahi said that he was not going back in his determination to rejig the works sector and free it from the ‘whims and caprices of cartels’, who he alleged had for years held back the wheel of progress of the ministry in giving Nigeria a cost effective and enduring road infrastructure.
“The track records and antecedents of the minister are in public domain. He cannot be blackmailed by the antics of those who want the old order in the works sector to continue. He is focused and battle ready against the giant inhibitors of progress in the works sector,” he said.
Emmanuel Addeh
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