A civil society
group, Whistleblowersmonitors says it
has uncovered multi-million dollars scams in the Ministry of
Aviation and Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) as it alleged that $76 million
Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) funds have grown wings and flew away.
The group in an
online statement accused Mrs Stella Odua, the minister
of aviation and the Managing Director of FAAN, Mr. George Uriesi of complicity
in the disappearance of the funds.
According to the
group, a petition in respect of the scam has been submitted to the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for investigation and prosecution.
“Under the law,
the procedure for accessing and spending from the Bilateral Air Service Agreement
(BASA) fund required that any expenses from this fund must be budgeted in the annual
budget, appropriated by the National Assembly and approved by Mr. President.
“Unfortunately,
since the resumption of Mrs. Stella Oduah and Mr. George Uriesi as Minister of Aviation
and Managing Director of FAAN respectively, this has not been done.
“Today, over
$76million and another $13million have been diverted to various projects
without following due process and the laid down procedures in the Bureau for
Public Procurement Act. These contracts
were neither publicly advertised nor contained in any of the Federal Government’s
Tenders & Procurement bulletins.” the group stressed.
The petition
states thus:
"As at 2006,
the BASA fund held in the CBN was $86,202,875.02 however by 2010 this amount
had
dropped to $76
million. The unfortunate thing is that
between 2010 and April 2012, the $76 million
fund had simply
vanished. Rather than apply the money to
verifiable physical projects, the money is
being shared and
used to pay for unbudgeted pseudo claims, expenses and unapproved projects. For instance in February 2010 or thereabout
$6 million out of the balance standing to the credit of the BASA fund was
claimed to have been used to pay Hydro Air Cargo for damages to its aircraft
when it landed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in November 2003. The real truth however is that this money was
only taken out using Hydro Air Cargo as an excuse for the money to be shared by
the
Managing Director
of FAAN and top officials of the Ministry of Aviation.
"In order to
confirm the veracity of this petition, the SFU is urged to investigate into the
following:
1. Why was the
claim by Hydro Air Cargo for the damage to its aircraft not referred to FAAN’s insurer
by the management of FAAN for settlement?
2. Has FAAN not
been paying its insurance premium to allow it enjoy full indemnity for the accident
of Hydro Air Cargo?
3. Investigate the
insurance premium schedule of FAAN.
4. Request for all
documents relating to the claims made that $6 million was paid to Hydro Air Cargo
5. Investigate the
account into which the payment was supposedly paid and to also investigate the
persons directly involved in the transaction. Note how the $6million was
“share” once it entered into Hydro Air Cargo Account.
DIVERSION OF NEW
MONIES AMOUNTING TO $80MILLION
"Now that the
$76million has been diverted and spent, the Federal Ministry of Aviation has
now devised a new method to further divert and spend all the current BASA
income of over $80 million received from the foreign airlines operating into
Nigeria. For instance the recent payments
by airlines such as Lufthansa, British Airways, Emirates etc amounted to over
$80 million are now being diverted. This
alarming situation of complete depletion of the BASA fund without any
appropriation from the National Assembly or approval from the Presidency or Federal
Executive Council or Bureau for Public Procurement is worrisome. We therefore call on the SFU to avert this
dangerous trend from continuing.
"The SFU is
invited to conduct an investigation into how all the money received from the 25
international airlines that paid BASA fees between 2010 and April 2012 were
diverted during the stewardship of Mrs. Fidelia Njeze and the present Minister
of Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah.
This fund which
included about $13.5million paid by Lufthansa as contained in a letter from the
Ministry of Aviation reference FMA/ATMD/501/S.I/104/XI/1153, $12 million paid
by British Airways and various amounts paid by the other airlines all totaling
over $80million were spent and diverted into various fictitious accounts under
the guise that there is a Presidential approval for the spending of BASA fund.
"Again, the
Agency is invited to investigate the actual amounts invoiced to and paid by
these airlines as well as the accounts into which all these BASA fees were
paid, how these fund was appropriated and the approvals obtained for
appropriation - the BASA fund had been converted for both capital and recurrent
expenditure against the approval guidelines for the management of the fund. All
they do is issue payment to any of these contractors without following due
process and then share the proceed with the company.
"Furthermore,
there is a need for the SFU to investigate how the Federal Ministry of Aviation
was able to divert the BASA fund which ought to have been paid to and managed
by the NCAA. The Federal Ministry of
Aviation is now very powerful to be able to divert monies into any account it
feels like, using FAAN accounts and fictitious FAAN projects.
SHARING OF THE
LOOT
"Having
successfully gained access to the BASA fund, the Honorable Minister of Aviation
seemed to have perfected acts of sharing the loot. Instead of using the BASA fund to develop the
industry, money in the BASA account simply found its way into private bank
accounts of contractors and the accounts of some parastatals under the Federal
Ministry of Aviation, particularly that of FAAN. An example is the N3 Billion out of the BASA
amount that was paid into FAAN HQ Main Account No. 1012771229 at Zenith Bank on
February 8, 2012. This yielded an interest of about N420 Million which was not
appropriately credited to any FAAN Account but was fraudulently shared by the
MD of FAAN, Hajia Nana Aliyu - 08037874204 (Ag. Director of Finance &
Account), a Director in Zenith by named Mr. Peter Amangbo, and other persons.
"The N3
Billion was placed in an interest yielding deposit account, but cunningly put
in the Current Account to deceive innocent looker. This fact can be easily
confirmed since the N3 Billion that was put in the Zenith Account no.
1012771229 in February 2012 still remain so till today without interest
accruals. This is not surprising, as it
has been an established practice in FAAN to keep money in interest yielding
accounts only for such interests to be diverted into the private accounts of
top executives of the parastatal. FAAN
is used to under declaring interest income for example in 2010 FAAN placed
N1.7billion in Zenith Bank Plc Account no. 6011520927 where accrued interest
was understated and the proceeds shared by senior officials including the
erstwhile Managing Director, the former Director of Finance & Account and
immediate past Director of Airport Operations now Managing Director, Mr. George
Uriesi.
"A further
check confirmed that this N3 Billion was used by the Honorable Minister of Aviation,
Mrs. Stella Oduah, to secure a loan from Zenith Bank to buy a Ship for the
operations of Sea Petroleum & Gas, her company. This is a great abuse of
office!
MISAPPROPRIATION
OF CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE FUND
"FAAN
maintained an Account they referred to as Construction and Maintenance Account.
This Account is used to warehouse monthly allocations to all the 22 Airports in
the country. The Account is maintained at Finbank Nig Plc now FCMB Plc and a
total of over N3.3Billion was transferred to the Account from Lagos operations
alone from January 2008 to April 2012.
However, the usage
of this funds remains questionable as it is a general knowledge that the Airports
are greatly rundown and cry for allocations to run the Airports which accounts for
the decayed infrastructure at the Airports.
"It is on
record that the Murtala Muhammed Airport generated as much as N43 Billion in
the 5 years between 2008 and 2012, one would however expect that 10% of these
amount would be set aside for maintenance of this airport. It is sad to note that moneys earmarked for maintenance
of airports are taken out and misappropriated.
There is no better way to describe the level of corruption in FAAN that
has affected airports maintenance than in the words of Mr. Edward Olarerin the
Airport Manager of Murtala Muhammed International Airport who said: ‘It will be
very wrong for me to say there is no corruption at the Murtala Muhammed
International Airport. We generate so much but we don't get this money. It is
frustrating for me when I cannot produce what I generate at MMIA……. Corruption
is also exhibited among the lower cadre of staff; it affects every hierarchy’
quoted in Thisday Newspaper of 17 June 2010."
The petition was
signed by Sulaiman Kazeem National Co-coordinator of the organization.
0 comments:
Post a Comment