Auctioning of govt assets: Water Resources Minister apologies to Reps for not following due process

Minister for Water Resources, Engr Suleiman Adamu has apologized to the House of Representatives for the auctioning of government property under 12 River Basin Development Authorities nationwide.

The Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Oluwole Oke (PDP, Osun) on Monday in Abuja while reviewing the Minister’s appearance before the Committee on Thursday, June 16, 2022, said that the Minister claimed not to know the existence of the provisions of section 55 of the Public Procurement Act which vested the power on the agencies.

Recall that the Ministry had, through 4 Auctioneers auctioned several billions naira worth of assets at a total sum of N137,235,746.50, a figure believed by the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation to be below expectations.

According to Oke, the Committee’s interest was to know if the Management of four of the River Basin Development Authorities that appeared before the committee willingly auctioned the property of the agencies.

He said “Your Minister was here last week and admitted that he actually raped the law. He apologised and said he did not that this law actually exists. How can you just carry auctioneers, give them government property to auction.

“Is the Minister for Water Resources the same as Upper Niger Basin Development Authority? They went to Abeokuta and carried the property belong to Nigerians and they admitted that we have 12 River Basin Development Authorities.

“The Auctioneers here and we asked them how they knew that the items will be auctioned. Where is the advertisement you responded to. How many auctioneers do we have in Nigeria and why is it just four that were selected to do the auction? Your colleague from Abeokuta was rushing to defend the Ministry.

“They carried out the auction without recourse to the provisions of the law. It is this same law that sent Bode George and his co-travelers at NPA to jail. It is the same law that earn Ngilari that we wrote the law together in 2003 a sentence in Adamawa.

“You do not wait for somebody to take over your function because he is your supervisory ministry. The former Chairman of the Board of Ogun/Oshun said he is coming to this parliament to testify of how he tried to stop them, using police and everything. Yet, they forcefully took away government property and sold them at ridiculous prizes.”

Adamu who had while appearing before the Committee had said he was in the office when the proposal to auction the items in the River Basin Development Authorities was made.

But a submission by the Ministry to the Committee showed a Board of Survey was constituted by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Water Resources on the 7th of October 2018 and headed by the Director of Human Resources, Abdul-Sule Mohammed to inspect all the unserviceable items mapped to disposal.

“Prior to the commencement of inspection of the unserviceable items and in tandem with the directive of the Honouable Minister, the RBDAs were formally adviced to expunge from the list of items earlier recommended for boarding, any item(s) considered salvageable”, the report stated.

In his remarks, the Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Rep Sa’ad Abdulkadir (APC, Bauchi) frowned at the agencies for flouting the laws, insisting they must however submit their audited account to the Auditor General for the Federation on or before 31st of May of the previous year.

He added the House may be forced to enact a law that will view the act as economic sabotage.