The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has frowned at an alleged N48 billion fraud in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The party on Wednesday, said the alleged fraud was another prove that “monstrous corruption, sleaze and cover-ups” had been going on in the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
It added that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) “stinks” with corruption.
The Federal Government in a leaked memo, recently queried a former permanent secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Umar Bello for allegedly purchasing a carcass building for N7.044 billion.
But Bello claimed that the transaction passed through the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
In a statement by its national spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the confession by Bello that “the duplicitous purchase of an ordinary carcass building for a humongous cost of N7.044 billion passed through the Federal Executive Council (FEC) further exposes the rot that has permeated the Buhari administration.”
The party insisted that such revelation had again shown how “the corrupt cabal in the Buhari Presidency and the APC have been pillaging our national treasury and fleecing our nation of billions of naira through fraudulent transactions in various ministries, departments and agencies, while parading before Nigerians as saints.”
The PDP described as “shameful that the FEC, under President Buhari’s watch, was fingered in financial manipulations and procurement sleazes in the Agric ministry including the alleged disappearance of N48 billion contractors’ fund, over N7 billion duplicated payments, diversion of N9.1 billion worth of drilling rigs to unnamed private individuals, purchase of carcass building for N7.044 billion, in addition to misapplication of billions of naira meant for strategic grains, rural grazing area settlement funds and other food production intervention schemes.
“The fraud in the Ministry of Agriculture has further exposed how officials of the Buhari administration and corrupt APC leaders have turned government ministries and agencies into their Automated Teller Machine (ATM) just as the case of exposed looting of billions of naira in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) among others.”
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The opposition party, therefore, called on the National Assembly as well as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to immediately commence investigation into the supposed behemoth of fraud in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
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