Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency, Mr Mustapha Maihaja,\u00a0 has denied misappropriating N33 billion as alleged by the House of Representatives Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness.
\nMaihaja denied the allegation while briefing newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja, where he shed more light on activities and interventions of the agency.
\nHe described the public response as an obligation to adequately inform Nigerians what truly happened in NEMA.
\nHe said the House of Representatives\u2019 committee got the whole figures mixed up, leading it to make the accusation.
\nThe\u00a0News Agency of Nigeria\u00a0reports that the house at its plenary on November 8 received the report of the committee led by Rep Isa Ali, alleging violation of public trust against NEMA.
\nHe denied receiving N5.8 billion for the Emergency Intervention of Food Security in the North East as contained in the committee\u2019s report.
\nHe explained that NEMA only got about N800 million while other funds were paid directly to contractors.
\n\u201cThe Emergency Intervention of Food security in the North East came into being due to a number of factors and the project demand was a clear case of an emergency.
\n\u201cIn the course of the programme, grains were moved from various warehouses in Ibadan, Funtua, Kano, Gombe and Kaduna to the North East to cater for the dire food needs of victims of insurgency.
\n\u201cThe movement of the grains was well-coordinated with adequate security and there was no reported case of a single bag of grain missing during the movement.
\n\u201cAs part of the process of monitoring the project, a visit was undertaken by the Minister of State, Budget and National Planning on August 7 and 8, 2017 to Bauchi, Yola and Maiduguri.
\n\u201cDuring those visits, no issues were raised by the states and throughout the entire process, we did not receive any feedback, positive or negative on the process.
\n\u201cTaken into cognizance the open door policy we had taken and the long tenure of the project, there were many avenues for these issues to be raised to NEMA or the acting president,\u2019\u2019 Maihaja said.
\nMaihaja also explained that the People\u2019s Republic of China donated 6,779 metric tonnes of rice to Nigeria as part of its support to the North East humanitarian efforts.
\n
\nHe said the quantity of the rice was 135,550 units of 50kg bags.
\nHe said that in total, 271 containers arrived Apapa Port from China in five shipments between June and October 2017.
\nHe explained that the agency expended N518 million on\u00a0shipping and storage charges for the 271 containers donated by China.
\nHe said that the original shipping documents and Custom Exemption Certificates were handed over to NEMA by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning in December 2017 and January 2018.
\nHe said that thereafter, NEMA commenced the immediate clearing and subsequent haulage of the donated rice to Maiduguri, Damaturu, Yola, Jalingo, Gombe and Bauchi.
\n\u201cTo further justify that the items were received on behalf of the Federal Government, they were delivered into NEMA warehouses in Gombe, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa and warehouses provided by the state governments in Bauchi, Taraba and Yobe.
\n\u201cThe Chinese rice was used for the monthly feeding of the IDPs specifically in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states with balance in stock at Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba,\u201d he added
\nHe explained that in\u00a0the case of the flood intervention in the 12 states which was mentioned in the legislative report, N1.6 billion was released after the flood had occurred at different times.
\nHe explained that NEMA immediately conducted assessments and established the needs before moving in with relief materials.
\n\u201cThe agency delivered the items to the 12 states between September and November 2017 and subsequently the remaining four states.
\n\u201cEvidence of receipt of the items by the respective state governments is available.
\nHe said that following the international outcry of cases of slavery in Libya towards the end of 2017, the Federal Government commenced the massive evacuation of Nigerians from Libya.
\nHe said that the operation was highly successful with prudent fund management after which the unspent balance was returned to the coffers of FG.
\nHe said that the agency had documents and facts of all its interventions to justify the prudent use of all funds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency, Mr Mustapha Maihaja,\u00a0 has denied misappropriating N33 billion as alleged by the House of Representatives Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness. Maihaja denied the allegation while briefing newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja, where he shed more light on activities and interventions of the agency. He described the public response as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}