Posted by From Kola Ologbondiyan in Abuja on
The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources chairman, Senator Bode Olowo-poroku, yesterday alleged that the Presidency was aware Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello ripped Nigerians of N3.5bn from the award of N14bn fertiliser contract to two companies belonging to an Indian.
* Minister meets Senate leadership
The Senate Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources chairman, Senator Bode Olowo-poroku, yesterday alleged that the Presidency was aware Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello ripped Nigerians of N3.5bn from the award of N14bn fertiliser contract to two companies belonging to an Indian.
Olowoporoku also alleged that contrary to the Minister's assertion that he was being hounded for refusing the senator a contract, his committee in investigating Bello acted upon a petition brought before it by Gamji Fertilizer Company Ltd last June.
But Bello, who was in the National Assembly to meet with the Senate leadership, said that Olowoporoku told no fewer than seven senators that he (Bello) refused to give him a contract in which he would have made a profit of N200m.
Olowoporoku, who addressed newsmen in his office yesterday alleged that 'the Presidency knew of this monumental fraud because another Minister imported fertilizer from Ukraine in the same 2004 and landed his own fertilizer at about N1,500 per bag while Adamu Bello awarded his own for N2,800 per bag.
'The Presidency knew of this situation. The Presidency wants Nigerians to believe that it is the Senate that is corrupt while the executive which presides over the spending of all the billions in the capital budget is a saint.
'It is a tragedy of the Due Process if a single Minister could single handedly award N14bn contracts at an inflated price of N2,800 per bag while a bag of fertiliser from direct importers was selling in Nigerian markets for N1,800. In the process a minimum fraud/rip off of N3.5bn was committed.
'Bello told Nigerians that he was given Due Process Certificate to import his fertilizer at N2,800 per bag in 2004 and it is the same Due Process which gave another Minister certificate to import a bag of fertilizer at N1,500 per bag in the same 2004 and the market price in Nigeria from direct importers was N1,800 per bag as if the Due Process has been used to camouflage Nigerians to decorate the fraud of the executive.
'It is not N55m bribes that earned Nigerian the position of 3rd most corrupt country in the world. It is this type of monumental fraud of Adamu Bello that had made Nigeria a notoriously corrupt country of the world. It is sad that gullible Nigerians have been carried away by the dramatisation surrounding the N55m bribe; while we also condemn the bribe, we want Nigerians to know that it is the people who preside over the spending of capital budget of Nigeria and awarding contracts that steal Nigerian money to Europe and America and now to South Africa.
'Executives are the people who have made Nigerians poor and disgraced us in the international arena and not the legislature at any level. Nigeria can now see that the exposure of the N3.5 billion rip-off was not because fertiliser was not awarded to a certain company which bidded.
'The company did not belong to any senator and once they were not given anything, it was forgotten until about six months later in June 2004 when the Senate started to receive petitions from Nigerians about the fertiliser fraud.
'This N3.5bn is not the only fraud of Mallam Adamu Bello. The House of Representatives also accused him of fraud in the delivery and distribution of fertiliser to the farmers. The House has a report on that. Also farmers petitioned the Presidency about series of frauds of the Minister in the Ministry. It is a chain of frauds and the Ministry stinks since Bello got to the Ministry."
Olowoporoku alleged that 'year in, year out, the Minister has been giving zero capital allocation to the Research Institutes and Colleges of Agriculture because he won't be able to commit fraud there because of the Governing Boards and Directors of the Institutes. Therefore, he concentrated on the areas where he can commit direct fraud such as fertiliser, silos, ambiguous food security votes which he squanders.
'Save the noise about cassava, the Minister has ruined Nigerian agriculture. Even the cassava production of 3.5m metric tone annually is not because of the present government, it has always been there as contribution of small scale farmers to Nigerian economy.
'The present government can only be credited in helping the farmers to find markets and give awareness, otherwise Bello contributed nothing to the production of cassava. Let him tell us what contribution he has made to agriculture since he became the Minister in 2001. None except monumental fraud."
Recalling that his committee got 'petitions from Nigerian companies over the fertiliser contract award," Olowoporoku said 'we immediately invited the Minister to our meeting to come and explain to us about the contract. Mallam Adamu Bello ran away; he did not show up, instead he sent his Minister of State and his Permanent Secretary to come and meet us.
'We met the Minister of State and his Permanent Secretary and showed them the petition and asked them the reason why the contracts were awarded to an Indian company and for that price. The Minister of State and the Permanent Secretary told us that they did not know when the contracts were awarded. They said they would tell the Minister to come and answer our questions but the Minister never came despite messages to appear."
The copy of the petition from Gamji Fertilizer Company Ltd, and dated July 27, 2004, signed by its Managing Director, Mohammed Sani, which Olowoporoku displayed and later gave to newsmen read in part: 'It is highly shocking to inform that the Honourable Minister of Agriculture did not deem it fit to award any contract to Gamji Fertilizer despite the fact that he knows that Gamji Fertilizer is one of the most experienced, reputable indigenous fertilizer companies in Nigeria.
'We wish to say categorically that our tender was better than the tenders of the Indian companies to which he awarded the bulk of the fertilizer contracts and to which he has been awarding fertilizer contracts of his ministry for the past two years.
'We feel it has come to the stage when we should speak out if he does not know that he has been damaging the economy by allowing Indian companies to rip-off the economy. How many Nigerians can be awarded such contracts in India, which is also a poor country like ours?
'We wish to state that there is no technical know how involved in the fertilizer importation as to make the Hon. Minister preclude Nigerians from being patronised. It is very sad at this stage of Nigeria. We also want to point out to you that most of the Indian companies are responsible for the fraud and dubious methods of manipulating our economy, and they supply sub-standard goods to this country.
'It is a serious case of un-patriotism for the Minister to have mortgaged the supply of fertilizer to the Indians."
Bello, who spoke with newsmen after his meeting with Senate President Ken Nnamani as well as Senate Leader Dalhatu Tafida, dismissed Olowoporoku's litany of allegations. He reiterated that Olowoporoku told former Senate President Adolphus Wabara, in the presence of Tafida, Senators Usman Albishir and Mohammed Aruwa and three other senators that he (Bello) made him lose a contract in which he would have made a profit of N200m.
The Minister also told State House Correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting that no minister could on his own award a contract running into millions of naira.
Bello said the Council reviewed the relationship between his Ministry and the Sentate Committee on Afgriculture in the light of the allegations saying 'Council noted that actually, fertilizer contracts were approved. No minister can give contract of so many millions of naira without getting approval of Council with the President."