Hours after Kaduna State Governor-elect, Malam Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai vowed to probe anyone culpable in the N2.7billion SURE-P funds diversion, the State APC Transition Committee has dragged the Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero led government before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The transition committee is asking the anti-graft agency to stop the Yero-led outgoing government from what it described as last minute looting of public assets.
A letter addressed to the EFCC Chairman by the transition committee, signed by the Chairman of the committee, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, and titled:The attempt to misappropriate SURE-P Funds in Kaduna State, reads: “Yero has been putting the legislature under tremendous pressure to approve his utilisation of 50 per cent of the Sure-P funds for a road project, while the 23 local government councils would share the balance.”
“I write to bring to your attention the elaborate steps being taken by the outgoing Kaduna State Government to legitimise the misappropriation of N2.744 billion Local Government Sure-P funds, and to request that you exercise your responsibility of deterring crime by preventing this last-minute looting of public assets.
“The Kaduna State House of Assembly declined to appropriate the Sure-P funds in the 2015 budget, and promptly removed them from the budgets submitted by the 23 local government councils. The state legislators further resolved that the fate of the funds be left to the incoming administration.
“The outgoing governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, however has been putting the legislature under tremendous pressure to approve his utilisation of 50 percent of the Sure-P funds for a road project, while the 23 local government councils would share the balance. Coming from a government whose tenure expires in less than two weeks, the intensity of the lobby for the money indicates a certain desperation that is clearly not in the public interest.
“I wish to therefore request that you urgently investigate whether the Sure-P funds are still intact, or if they have been spent without appropriation thus necessitating a belated approval from the House of Assembly to provide a ‘legal’ means of retiring the funds. If, as it is widely believed in the state, the monies have already been spent, it is crucial to determine the projects, the contractors and the procurement processes that facilitated such a deliberate hemorrhaging of public funds,” it reads.
Meanwhile, El-Rufai was quoted in statement as saying, “I have been informed of desperate attempts to secure approval to spend N2.744 billion Sure-P funds. Less than two weeks to its exit, the outgoing government of Kaduna State is seeking to pressure the outgoing House of Assembly to permit it to spend 50 percent of the money on the Kawo road project, while the 23 local government councils will share the balance.
“As governor-elect, it is my duty to caution every official involved in these last-minute deals that the incoming government will ensure that there are consequences for illegal conduct, breach of trust and stealing of public assets. Our government will certainly insist on accountability, and no one should be in any doubt about our resolve, be it the instigators of any impropriety or those who facilitated and executed it,” El-Rufai stated.