EFCC swoops on agric ministry - Arrests audit official

Idowu Samuel, Abuja - 04.01.2008

nancial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has swooped on the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, Abuja, and in the process, arrested an official of the audit department (name withheld), who was alleged to have extorted money from contractors.

Some EFCC officials, it was learnt, had on Wednesday offered the arrested official some marked money running into millions of naira by proxy before moving in to arrest him.

The action by the EFCC followed a petition written by a group of contractors in the ministry to President Umaru Yar’Adua and the Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Abba Ruma, detailing their grievances on the refusal by the ministry to pay them for the works they did.

The contractors also sent copies of the petition to the Secretary to the Government of Federation, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, Chief of Staff to the President and the National Security Adviser.

The petition, signed by five of the contractors – Alhaji Ado Mohammed, Uchechukwu Ugwu, Abiola Adeogun, Lawal Mohammed and Alhaji Yau Mohammed dated December 31, and obtained by Nigerian Tribune revealed the approaches used by the officials of the ministry to extort money from them

The contractors had alleged that the ministry had refused to pay them for all the works they took on contract and which were certified duly completed by the engineers of the ministry with payment initially approved.

They alleged that despite their work being fully certified as completed, the ministry only selected a few among them and paid them to the displeasure of the other contractors and without stating reasons for the selective payment.