By Amadin Idahosa
Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has expressed his dissatisfaction following PremiumTimes report regarding the illegal payment of N4.6 billion to officials under his watch.
In a release he titled “Stealing Public Trust: PremiumTimes Low Premium Reporting,” the Minister said, “If anything has been stolen, it is the Trust of the public,” by the aforementioned news medium.
His outburst emanated from another publication of premiumtimes on November 18 which cited requests from Nigerians to probe into the illegal payment of ₦4.6 billion into the personal accounts of some officials of the former ministry of power, works and housing,
Fashola, whose reply dated Wednesday, November 18, got to newsmen on Sunday 23, stated that, “If Premium Times investigated, it would have found and reported that Ministers do not manage accounts and finances of Ministries.
“A little investigation would have shown that Directors of Finance and Accounts, DFAs, are those who do this job and they are staff of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and seconded to the Ministries as part of financial controls.”
Concluding, Fashola declared that in all, no money was stolen or is missing, adding that there’s no ‘Smoking Gun’ to criminalize him.
Not holding back words, the Minister further said what PremiumTimes did “Is not investigative Journalism. It is Irresponsible Journalism.”
But according premiumtimes, their findings revealed that payments were made to 21 staff members of the ministry within four months, with two-thirds of the amount going to the duo of Ogueri Ugochukwu Pascal and Olasehinde Micah.
Premiumtimes reported that Pascal was paid ₦1.6 billion while the Micah got ₦1.4 billion.
An excerpt from Fashola’s release, earlier, posited that no investigation was undertaken in respect of the alleged fraud as the report was from “Open Portal.”
“If it was from the Open Portal then there was nothing to hide.” He said.
Via the payment platform called Integrated Payment Platform and Information System, IPPIS, Fashola explained the standard procedure of obtaining and dispensing public funds.
Meanwhile the position of premiumtimes remains that in the last lap of 2019, the ministry of power and the ministry of works and housing, both gave no information about the two men, (Pascal and Micah) and online searches for their names yielded little luck.
Premiumtimes reported that the ministry of power said they are not its staff, while Works and housing ministry declined to comment.
