THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked President Buhari to terminate the appointments of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, as well as the suspended Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman, over alleged non-remittance of N165 billion by the management of NPA.
In a statement by spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, yesterday, the opposition said this was necessary in order to allow fair investigations into the matter.
Ologbondiyan lamented that the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) have become the All Progressives Congress (APC) cash cows in the past six years.
“The foul stench of corruption oozing out of the NPA, NDDC and other agencies of government in the last six years has shown that our MDAs have become the cash cows and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) of greedy leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their cronies in government in their unbridled looting of our patrimony under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch.
“Our party asserts that the fact that it took the minister a clear six years (2016 to 2021) to query the NPA Managing Director over N165 billion unremitted operating surplus of the agency, which is under his purview, is suspect and raises public belief that he (Amaechi) only acted apparently to shield himself after indicting audit documents had already been exposed.
“This is in addition to reports from the Office of Auditor General which also unearthed the looting of unremitted deduction to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) amounting to N3,667,750,470, $148,845,745.04, Euro 4,891,449.50 and £252,682.14 under the suspended NPA Managing Director and Amaechi’s ministerial supervision.
“The audit report also exposed another N15.18 billion allegedly siphoned through shady corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects by the NPA, an agency under Amaechi’s ministerial purview.
“The PDP, therefore, rejected the obvious attempt at a cover-up in the recourse to an administrative panel of enquiry recommended by the transport minister to investigate the NPA fraud, adding that the minister also has some questions to answer.
“Our party insists that both the minister and the NPA Managing Director should be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for investigation and possible prosecution,” the party said.
