Tuesday, November 03, 2009              

Govt denies withdrawal of N14.9b auto, sugar funds
From Emeka Anuforo, Abuja

GOVERNMENT at the weekend, denied reports that N14. 9 billion was withdrawn from the National Automotive Council and the National Sugar Development Council special accounts by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Responding to media reports recently quoting him, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Mr. Humphrey Abba, said at the weekend that he did not at any time tell members of the House Committee on Industry that the previous administration withdrew such money from the fund of the agencies.

He said: "I was taken aback. I was shocked the way the paper reported the news item attributed to me as having said when the members of the House visited the ministry. There was no time I made a statement like this.

"I have never made such a statement. At no time did I talk about any amount of money being squandered by any previous government not to talk of N15 billion. I never mentioned that any amount of money was missing somewhere neither did I mention that anybody embezzled any money.

"For you to reach such a conclusion, it has to go through process of investigation, I have never investigated account or anybody so on what premise would I make this kind of assertion. I think the paper owe me a lot of apology and I think they will give it a retraction and publicity that they gave it," the minister stressed.

According to him, what the ministry presented to the committee in writing was that it had reached about 65 per cent of its performance.

He continued: "Where and when did the issue of missing money come in? That was an issue, which was not brought by me. They brought a question that was raised by a House member and I told them that I was hearing it for the first time and I directed the permanent secretary to write letters to both DGs of NAC and Sugar Council. I asked the House Committee members to give two weeks and whenever we get a response from these people we would forward the response to them accordingly."