The House of Representatives Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness was on Thursday mandated to probe the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), over the alleged looting and diversion of N19.4 billion relief materials funds for victims of disasters. The directive followed a motion moved by Benjamin Wayo, under matter of urgent public importance on the floor of the House.
In his motion, the lawmaker noted that the funds and relief materials were meant for hunger intervention in the North East and food intervention across the country.
He lamented that the funds were stolen by officials of the NEMA through dubious and unexecuted contracts. He said the actions of these corrupt officials had led to the death of many Nigerians while others are still suffering.
“The hunger issue in IDP camps in the Northeast; the farmers/herdsmen conflicts; fire disasters victims and many other such cases across the country have been neglected.
“The agency has received more than N10 billion from the 20 per cent National Ecological Fund in the last one year, N5 billion for hunger intervention in the Northeast, about N2 billion for food intervention across the country,” the lawmaker said.
“These funds were illegally siphoned by officials of the agency through dubious award of contracts without delivering relief items to the victims. The Director General of the agency also awards contracts to companies he has personal interests in, and has violated his approval limits by awarding contracts to a single firm without due process.
“Example, one company called Olam Nigeria Limited got a contract of N2.4 billion, which is against the agency’s approval limit as stated in Section 16 subsection 1 of the NEMA Act. It should be made clear that the section pegs the approval limit at just N30 million,” he added.
