Guardian

THE Abia State Physical Planning and Infrastructural Development Fund (APPIDF) allegedly lost N19.292 billion to fraudulent practices from its inception in 1999 to 2012, it has been revealed.

This was contained in the report submitted to Governor Theodore Orji by the investigative judicial panel set up by the state government and headed by Mr. Justice Kevin Wogu.

While submitting the report at Government House in Umuahia, the state capital on Monday evening, Wogu told Orji that the panel also found that between 2000 and January 2007, APPIDF funds totalling N4.2 billion, were used by the then state government to divert funds accruing to the state from the monthly federal statutory allocation to pay for undisclosed projects and other payments outside the contemplation of the enabling law and thereby brought the total revenue lost by the agency between 1999 to 2012 to N23.4 billion.

Wogu of the state High Court said that before Governor Orji set up the first management board for the APPIDF in 2009, which had former state Finance Commissioner, Dr. Max Ndukwe as chairman, the management of the APPIDF became an all-comers affair that enriched many and was used for political aggrandisement.

Accordingly, he said that the law No 28 of 1999 that established the APPIDF was breached. He recommended that government adopted for implementation, his panel’s recommendations for a comprehensive auditing of the fund so as to be able to establish the specific amount lost and those involved in the fraud.

Stating N80 million was the total amount that various undisclosed persons would refund, the chairman said that the report was in four volumes, while his panel received 21 memoranda, conducted 30 oral interviews and dealt with 103 exhibits.

Orji in his remarks said that the lost money, which would have been used to develop the state, went into personal pockets and assessed the lost funds as amounting to the state’s seven months revenue allocation.

Commending members of the panel for doing a thorough job. He, however, asserted that the panel was not set up to witch-hunt anybody or group, indicating that the panel’s recommendations would be implemented accordingly.