The Senate Committee on Trade and Investment yesterday invited the Minister of Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo and the Acting Managing Director of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority, Terhembe Nongo, over N15bn voted for a private company in the ministry’s budget.
The chairman of the committee, Rose Oko, said the summons were issued following the report of the committee that the minister and the permanent secretary of the ministry failed to defend the allocation during a budget defence.
Oko said the committee was asked to make available from the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, the shareholding structure, but that the document presented did not reveal the identity of the shareholders.
She told the Senate Committee on Appropriation that his committee had requested the NEPZA to give full details of what happened and that its response was that the money was allocated in 2017 when the company was not in existence.
She alleged that “The company was registered in 2018; meanwhile, the money was already allocated in 2017 which is domiciled in CBN. More so, N15bn was released two days ago to the same company.”
