Leadership (Abuja)
By Lilian Agih
20 November 2008
Abuja — Former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Malam Nasiru El-rufai has been invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to appear before it next Friday, November 28, over alleged misappropriation of Federal Government's funds and property.
The Head, Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Femi Babafemi confirmed the invitation of the former minister in an interview with our correspondent last night but refused to comment on the full details of the matter.
But LEADERSHIP gathered that "El-Rufai's invitation has to do with several petitions written by federal agencies like NIPOST and Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN)" to the anti-graft commission, accusing him of inappropriate handling of public funds and property.
Early this year, Nasir el-Rufai was invited by the Senate committee probing the sale of houses, revocation of plots of land, demolition of structures and sundry issues in the FCT while he was holding forte as minister.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on FCT, Senator Abubakar Danso Sodangi, through a resolution of the Senate had written to all stakeholders as well as former ministers of the FCT to appear before the panel and give details of their involvements, roles and any other information at their disposal that would assist the committee to respond, act and recommend in the overall interest of all Nigerians.
The demolition, revocation and concessioning exercise in the FCT has remained a big source of worry for all Nigerians, both residents and visitors to the FCT.
Also contentious is the issue of revocation of land titles conducted under the former minister.
Aside the series of indictments, his long soured relationship with some members of the Senate, particularly the ranking lawmakers has been a source of worry to some of his friends.
In the financial statement presented to the Senate Committee on FCT by the former minister on the sale of the houses, a total sum of N96.32 billion was said to have been realised and collected out of which a total of N1.8 billion was expended, comprising cost for survey and beaconing, property valuation, publicity and adverts, public auctions, consultancy, information technology equipment, handover costs, audit fees, staff salaries, purchase of vehicles and office operations.
In the document, the total receipts amounted to N96.3 billion while amount of money transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria was N19,145,104,978.98; transfer to the Federal Capital Territory was 25 percent amounting to N6,381,701,659.66; expenses were to the tune of N1,819,889,739.02; refunds were N6,592,659,774.76; returns to the drafts and bank charges were N215,087,754.66; total deductionsN34,154,443,907.08; while the available balance amounted to N62,168,469,216.10.
The document had indicated that the delay in the proposed N100 billion bonds by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria had made it impossible to close out transactions as majority of Nigerians were unable to raise money from alternative sources at attractive rates.
A source told LEADERSHIP last night that the move by the EFCC to investigate El-rufai was not unconnected with the missing gaps in the transaction over the sales of government's properties.
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