Ahmad Salihijo, suspended CEO of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), has come under the radar of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the misappropriation of N12.7 billion.
On Friday, the EFCC published a report detailing how Salihijo’s management team stole the sum between 2020 and 2023.
This report came one week after President Bola Tinubu suspended the management over N1.2 billion fraud. Those suspended include Salihijo; Olaniyi Netufo, executive director of corporate services; Barka Sajou, executive director, Technical Services; and Sa’adatu Balgore, executive director, Rural Electrification Fund (REF).
In their stead, Tinubu set up a new acting management team for the agency with Abba Aliyu as Managing Director/CEO.
EFCC noted that it received complaints of misappropriation, procurement fraud and money laundering ongoing in the REA and sent investigators to probe them.
During this probe, the commission uncovered more anomalies.
Among these anomalies was the fact that Salihijo had 37 bank accounts linked to his biometric verification number (BVN) but declared only two accounts to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
EFCC’S FINDINGS
In its report, the EFCC wrote, “That Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad has (37) bank accounts linked to his biometric verification number.
“That the Bank Verification Number (BVN) printout depicts irregularities as there are different dates of birth associated with the suspect.
“That the (37) bank accounts in (ii) comprises (14) corporate accounts, (21) personal accounts, and (2) other accounts in the names of Bilkisu Salihijo.
“That on the 1st of September, 2020, Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad declared his assets with the Code of Conduct Bureau.
“That the suspect declared only two bank accounts with the Code of Conduct Bureau.
“That the suspect did not declare that he owns any factory or enterprise in the forms he filled at the Code of Conduct Bureau.
“That the suspect made false declarations at the Code of Conduct Bureau as he operates (27) active accounts against the (2) accounts declared by him.
“That the suspect made false declaration at the Code of Conduct Bureau as he stated that he does not have any factory or enterprise while in reality, he is a director in (5) companies and shareholder(owner) in (4) companies.”
2 COMPANIES, SAME OWNER, 2 IDENTICAL N330M CONTRACTS
The EFCC detailed how it found that two companies, Cees Assist Resources Limited and Braintask Value Resources Limited, owned by Umaefulem Chibueze, received two inflated contracts for one training programme.
“That on the 6th March, 2023 and 10th of April, 2023 respectively, Mr Umaefulem Donatus Chibueze dispatched an application/training proposal to the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency, seeking the training of the Agency’s staff,” the EFCC wrote.
“That Cees Assist Resources Limited application in (ii) emphasised that the training cost per week for each participant is (N450,000.00) which translates to (N128,571.43) for two days being the duration eventually adopted by the agency.
“That Braintask Value Resources Limited application emphasised that the training cost per week for each participant is also (N450,000.00) which translates to (N128,571.43) for two days as well.
“That based on the computation, the payments due to Cees Assist Resources Limited and Braintask Value Resources Limited for two days training of (203) staff of the agency as approved, was supposed to be (N52,200,000.58).
“That between the 16th June 2023 and 23rd June 2023, the Rural Electrification Agency made payments totalling (N279,330,197.76) to Cees 7 Assist Resources Limited and Braintask Value Resources Limited in the sums of (N139,562,569.76) and (N139,767,628.00) respectively.
“That the payments were made into the companies’ Access Bank account numbers 0094494027 and 0107644861.
“That the consultant was overpaid in the sum of (N227,130,197.18).
“That upon receipt of the (N279,330,197.76) by the consultant, the Director of Administration and Human Resources of the Rural Electrification Agency namely Mr Suleiman Garba Bulkwang gave him instructions to remit the total sum of (N144,523,969.00) to other individuals, some of whom are staff of the agency, as well as some contractors of the agency all of whom were conduits for laundering the (N144,523,969.00).
“That the consultant heeded the instruction of the Director of Administration and Human Resources and disbursed the (N144,523,969.00) as instructed.
“That the consents of the recipients of the funds in (x) were not sought before they were paid the monies.
“That upon receipt of funds in (xiii), the Director of Administration and Human Resources Suleiman Bulkwang once again contacted the recipients and gave directives for the disbursement of the funds to various other persons, thereby, creating a complex trail of transactions in a bid to launder the funds.
“That having disbursed the (N144,523,969.00) as instructed in (x), and having being qualified to get the (N52,200,000.58) for the training exercise which was eventually executed, the consultant still had in custody, the balance of (N82,606,228.18) representing his share of the proceeds of crime.
“That from the proceeds of crime, the consultant made payments totalling (N54,000,000.00) to two real estate companies namely Jaykim Properties and Logistics Enterprises and Urban Shelter for purchase of properties from the loot.
“That the consultant also made payment of (N3,855,000.00) for Bureau de Change transaction.
“That the said consultancy/training contract was not appropriated for in the 2023 Appropriation Act and should never have been considered and paid for.
“That the agency did not carry out any procurement exercise, neither did it obtain requisite Certificate of no Objection from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) prior to its engagement of the Consultant in clear violation of the Public Procurement Act, 2007.
“That the total payments of (N139,562,569.76) and (N139,767,628.00) made to Cees Assist Resources Limited and Braintask Value Resources Limited exceeded the approval threshold of the managing director of the agency, Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad because his payment approval limit for consultancy services in year 2023 was (N99,000,000.00) and below.
“That for payments exceeding over (N99, 000,000.00), the Ministerial Tenders Board approval should have been gotten by the Agency.
“That in order to bring the payments within the threshold of the Managing Director of the agency, monies paid to the consultant were split into (12) tranches in ranges between (N18, 000,000.00) and (N27,000,000.00).
“That the Managing Director of the Agency approved the payments for the said training as proposed and processed by the Director of Administration and Human Resources Suleiman Garba Bulkwang, Executive Director Corporate Services Mr Alaba Netufo, Director of Finance and Account (Funds) Abdullahi Sambo.
“That the Director of Finance and Account (Funds) Abdullahi Sambo, authorised the payments made to the consultant without sighting necessary documents showing that the consultant was engaged upon execution of requisite procurement process in accordance with the Financial Regulation 2009.
“That ultimately, the sum of (N227,130,197.18) was criminally diverted and laundered out of the (N279,330,197.76) received by the consultant.”
N12.4 BILLION COVID-19 FUNDS MISAPPROPRIATED
In 2020 and 2021, the federal government disbursed two tranches of N6.2 billion naira to REA, meant for the government’s economic sustainability plan of ‘Energy for All’, aimed at mass rural solar power lighting.
With the fund, the agency decided to procure solar mini-grid and solar lights in selected healthcare facilities and surrounding communities across the country
The EFCC noted, “That for all the contracts proposed to be awarded by the agency, Selective Tendering procurement method was adopted and it was imperative to therefore seek ‘’certificate of no objection’’ from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
“That the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) issued ‘’Certificate of No Objection’ while emphasising that the agency should invite and request financial quotations from various companies for each lot, before awarding the contracts.
“That for most of the lots, the agency did not heed the directive of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) but rather went ahead to award most of the contracts to their choice contractors without inviting other approved contractors for each lot.
“That this approach did not give fair value to the government as financial quotation was not sought and received for consideration from other contractors as approved by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
“That the Rural Electrification Agency therefore awarded a total number of (77) contracts and (7) consultancy jobs to various contractors.
“That the narration of the contract award as furnished by the agency indicates contract splitting as contracts with same project narration which should have been awarded as a single project, were split in numerous bits.
“That the splitting of the contracts into numerous bits below (N250,000,000.00) allowed for the approval of the Managing Director of the Agency.
“That the approval limit for the Managing Director for ‘works’’ in 2020 and 2021 was (N250,000,000.00) & below as any contract cost higher than that would have warranted Ministerial Tenders Board approval outside the control of the Managing Director of the Agency.
“That payments totalling (N313,111,070.40) were made by the agency to various companies not captured or approved by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
“That overpayments totalling about (N310,000,000.00) were made to three contractors, which exceeded the contract award amount.
“That five contracts totalling (N583,671,221.67) were furnished as Covid-19 contracts by the agency but Remita platform being the central source of all payments, did not reveal any form of payments to those companies; hence these contracts were used to pad the agency’s submission to the Commission in a bid to camouflage its misappropriation of the said sum.
“That suspicious payments totalling over (N80,000,000.00) were made to various staff of the agency under the guise of fictitious narrations such as ‘survey and data collection’’ and economic sustainability programme.’’
“That for some of the contracts, payment vouchers were not raised while for others, relevant supporting documents were not attached in contravention of the Financial Regulation.
“That six consultants were engaged to serve as Project Owner’s Engineers entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring and evaluating the extent of execution of Covid-19 projects across the country.
“That the reports of the consultants in (xvii) have so far revealed that numerous contracts were under-executed, while some of them were no longer functional at the time of evaluation being just about six months after the supposed execution of the projects thereby indicating the use of inferior or substandard materials for the project execution.
“That sadly, some of the projects were also reported as zero per cent executed i.e they were never executed.
“That so far, projects totalling about N2,000,000,000.00 (two billion) have been reported as not executed across the country.
“That the agency however made full payments to the contractors for projects.”
The EFCC also found how N1.2 billion was stolen from the REA coffers between 2022 and 2023, and noted that it had begun to make some recoveries.
(FIJ)
