The public accounts committee of the House of Representatives says Suleiman Adamu, minister of water resources has admitted that his ministry erred in law when it ordered the auctioning of government properties in the 12 River Basin Development Authorities across the country.
Oluwole Oke, chairman of the committee disclosed this on Monday while reviewing the minister’s appearance before the committee last week.
Oke said Adamu claimed that he was not aware of the provisions of section 55 of the Public Procurement Act which vests the power on the agencies to auction the properties.
The ministry had auctioned several assets at a total of N137.23 billion which was below the valuation of the office of the auditor-general for the federation.
Oke had sought to know whether the management of four of the River Basin Development Authorities that appeared before the committee willingly auctioned the property of the agencies, saying it was a crime in the eyes of the law for them to allow another person to perform their duties without recourse to the law.
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 exist. 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 belonging to Nigerians and they admitted that we have 12 River Basin Development Authorities.
“The auctioneers were here and we asked them how they knew that the items would 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.
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“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 prices.”
The minister had, while appearing before the committee said he was not in office when the proposal to auction the items in the River Basin Development Authorities was first tabled, but the lawmakers frowned at the excuse.
A submission by the ministry to the committee, however, indicated that a board of survey was constituted by a permanent secretary in the ministry on October 17, 2018, and headed by the director of human resources, Abdul-Sule Mohammed with the mandate to inspect all the unserviceable items listed for disposal by the agencies among others.
