Rivers Assembly orders PAMO varsity VC arrest over N29bn

…urges state to set up debt recovery c’ttee

The Rivers State House of Assembly has issued warrant of arrest on the Vice Chancellor of PAMO University of Medical Sciences.

The Assembly took the decision deliberating on the report of its Ad hoc Committee on the investigation of scholarship funds to PAMO University.

The report was presented to the house by the Chairman of the Committee and Deputy Speaker of the house, Hon. Dumle Maol, on Friday, at the 53rd Legislative sitting of the house.

The committee had in their report recommended that warrant of arrest be issued on the Vice Chancellor, and for the State Government to set up a committee to recover all unaccounted funds in possession of the PAMO University and deposit them in the Consolidated Revenue Account of the State.

The assembly had opened an investigation into the state government’s funding of programmes in the university since 2017 and had invited the Vice Chancellor of the University for questioning.

House, however, took the resolution amidst the alleged refusal of the PAMO University Vice Chancellor to appear before the Ad hoc Committee after several invitations, to explain how money given to the university under the scholarship scheme was expended.

The report recounted how the university received over N29 billion from the state government with allegedly no corresponding students enrolment, giving credence to the reason behind the Vice Chancellor’s refusal to honour the invitations.

Speaking, Rt. Hon. Martin Chike Amaewhule said though the intentions of the government in entering into the scholarship scheme agreement was good, but the implementation failed.

Amaewhule frowned at the situation where documents presented by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, and the Office of the Accountant-General were at variance; adding that by simple deduction, out of the over N29 billion released by the State Government to PAMO University, it merely utilized only N5 billion.

The speaker according to the statement by his Special Assistant On Media Martins Wachukwu harped on the determination of the Assembly under his leadership to do the right thing irrespective of whose is involved.