Npower Payment, Other Programmes Led by Humanitarian Affairs Minister End in Huge Inconsistencies

An anti-corruption group, the Centre for Monitoring and Evaluation (CME) has published a report in which it deemed the procurement processes at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development flawed, in order to protect the interests of only a select few.

Also according to the report, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq presumably made use of associates to embezzle funds under the different social intervention programmes initiated by the Federal Government.

According to the CME report, of all the parastatals under the Humanitarian Ministry, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) which is responsible for managing disasters in the country is the most hit when it comes to fraudulent contracts.

A part of the report read, “The National Emergency Management Agency, a parastatal under the Humanitarian Affairs ministry, has been adjudged the worst in terms of violating procurement processes.” The report deems NEMA as the biggest culprits of manipulating procurement processes to favour particular people.

The report stated that it was revealed that the procurement department of NEMA receives instructions from some officials in the office of the Minister. It also noted that the Director-General of NEMA, Ahmed Habib allegedly collected illegal payments for every contract awarded at NEMA.

The report said that the different social intervention programmes under the ministry had been largely influenced by politics, and then turned into a consistent source of funds by officials at the ministry.

The widely criticised Npower scheme was not left out of the CME’s scrutinising eye, as the group concluded that the Npower scheme fell short of its standards. Recruitment into the scheme was said to be in favour of a particular ethnic (and religious) group in the country.

The report said that the beneficiaries of the Batch C of the Npower scheme were compiled by the Minister, favouring a particular ethnicity and religion. The report gathered that she used the scheme as a platform to solidify her hold on power amongst the country’s “power brokers.”

In the case of NEMA, the report found that the Minister gives instructions to divert funds for unreal emergency relief in some states in the northern region of the country. The CME also found that relief items donated by well-meaning individuals and organisations were diverted to a private storage facility, on the orders of the Minister.