Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo has written to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, exonerating himself from committing any fraud in the payments of subsidy claims when he held sway as the Accountant General of the Federation.
Dakwambo was blamed by the Faruk Lawal-led adhoc committee which investigated the management of the petroleum subsidy regime from 2009-2011 for making illegal payments of N128 billion in 24 hours in January 2009. On Dankwambo, the report said, "The particular Accountant General that served during the period 2009 was found to have made payments of equal instalments of N999 million for the record of 128 times within 24 hours totaling N127.872 billion.
"The confirmed payments from CBN records were made to beneficiaries yet to be disclosed by the OAGF or identified by the committee. We however, discovered that only 36 marketers were participants under the PSF scheme during this period. Even if there were 128 marketers, it was inconceivable that all would have imported the same quantity of products to warrant equal payments."
However, in a letter addressed to Tambuwal dated 22nd April 2012, the governor said, "I have never committed any fraud and I will never be involved in any by the grace of God. I wish to state in very categorical terms that the Office of the Account General of the Federation (OAGF) does not have the power to make payments on its own. The OAGF only releases funds to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MADs) after due authorisation by the Hon. Minister of Finance.
"The payments to beneficiaries and all necessary documentations in relation to such payments is entirely the responsibility of the MDAs. More so, the OAGF is not involved in the management of the funds of the MDAs and therefore does not authorise payments to individuals dealing with the MDAs. The PPPRA is no exception."
Exonerating himself, Dankwambo gave detailed explanation on the processes for payments of subsidy to oil markets, arguing that it was the sole responsibility of the PPPRA to computes the total bulk of the subsidy to be released to its account and forward same to the Federal Ministry of Finance for approval.
Dankwambo lamented that he was never invited by the panel and given fair hearing.
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Daily Trust