PDP Urges EFCC to Probe, Prosecute Amaechi, Hadiza over NPA ‘Looted’ Funds
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has demanded the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) probe and prosecution Nigeria’s minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and the suspended managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala-Usman.
The call by the opposition party for a new approach to the crisis at the NPA came hours after Amaechi inaugurated the administrative panel he set up to probe Hadiza Bala-Usman.
Nigerians have observed that the administrative probe panel will amount to a waste of time, insisting that even the composition leaves much to be desired.
The PDP in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Monday said the alleged looting of over N165 billion at the NPA must be thoroughly investigated by the EFCC which is saddled with such responsibility.
“The party also asks the transport minister to come clean on his reported connection in the alleged involvement of his wife, Mrs Edith Amaechi in the exposed N48 billion contract scam currently rocking the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
“The foul stench of corruption oozing out of the NPA, NDDC and other agencies of government in the last six years has shown that our MDAs have become the cash cows and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) of greedy leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their cronies in government in their unbridled looting of our patrimony under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch.
“Our party asserts that the fact that it took the minister a clear six years (2016 to 2021) to query the NPA managing director over the alleged looting of N165 billion unremitted operating surplus of the agency, which is under his purview, is suspect and raises public belief that he (Amaechi) only acted apparently to shied himself after indicting audit documents had already been exposed.
“This is in addition to reports from the office of Auditor General, which also unearthed the looting of unremitted deduction to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) amounting to N3,667,750,470; $148,845,745.04, Euro 4,891,449.50 and £252,682.14 under the suspended NPA Managing Director and Amaechi’s ministerial supervision,” the PDP said.
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