El-Rufai transition committee drags Gov. Yero to the EFCC

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The State APC Transition Committee has dragged the Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero led administration before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over an alleged N2.7bn SURE-P fund diversion scheme.

The transition committee wants the EFCC to stop Yero and his government from an alleged last minute looting of public assets.

According to a letter addressed to the EFCC Chairman by the transition committee and titled:‎‎The ‎attempt to misappropriate ‎SURE-P Funds in Kaduna State, “Yero‎‎ has been putting the legislature under tremendous pressure to approve his utilisation of 50 per cent of the Sure-P funds for a road project, while the 23 local government councils would share the balance.”

‎‎The letter signed by the Chairman of the committee, Balara‎be Abbas Lawal‎ read that, “I write to bring to your attention the elaborate steps being taken by the outgoing Kaduna State Government to legitimise the ‎misappropriation‎ of N2.744 billion Local Government Sure-P funds, and to request that you exercise your responsibility of deterring crime by preventing this last-minute looting of public assets.

“The Kaduna State House of Assembly declined to appropriate the Sure-P funds in the 2015 budget, and promptly removed them from the budgets submitted by the 23 local government councils. The state legislators further resolved that the fate of the funds be left to the incoming administration.

“The ‎outgoing governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero‎, however has been putting the legislature under tremendous pressure to approve his utilisation of 50 percent of the Sure-P funds for a road project, while the 23 local government councils would share the balance. Coming from a government whose tenure expires in less than two weeks, the intensity of the lobby for the money indicates a certain desperation that is clearly not in the public interest.

“I ‎wish to therefore request that you urgently investigate whether the Sure-P funds are still intact, or if they have been spent without appropriation thus necessitating a belated approval from the House of Assembly to provide a ‘legal’ means of retiring the funds. If, as it is widely believed in the state, the monies have already been spent, it is crucial to determine the projects, the contractors and the procurement processes that facilitated such a deliberate hemorrhaging of public funds,” it reads.

Meanwhile, ‎El-Rufai was quoted in ‎statement as saying, “I have been informed of desperate attempts to secure approval to spend N2.744 billion Sure-P funds. Less than two weeks to its exit, the outgoing government of Kaduna State is seeking to pressure the outgoing House of Assembly to permit it to spend 50 percent of the money on the Kawo road project, while the 23 local government councils will share the balance.

“As governor-elect, it is my duty to caution every official involved in these last-minute deals that the incoming government will ensure that there are consequences for illegal conduct, breach of trust and stealing of public assets. Our government will certainly insist on accountability, and no one should be in any doubt about our resolve, be it the instigators of any impropriety or those who facilitated and executed it,” El-Rufai said.