The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Representatives investigating the alleged mismanagement of COVID-19 intervention funds from 2020 to 2021 has queried management of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) on the ultilisation of the over N60bn allocated to the Agency during the epidemic.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon Bamidele Salam (PDP, Osun) stated when the management of the agency led by its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer Dr. Chukwuemeka Agbasi.l appeared before it.
FERMA had claimed that a total of 192 projects were carried out across the country, a submission, which the lawmakers denied ever existed in their constituencies.
A road from Tafawa Balewa area to a location around Plateau state was also put under the spotlight as a lawmaker and member of the committee requested for the pictorial evidence of road during that period, saying “In the claim of the FERMA boss his explanation does not sound real.
Another lawmaker from Osun, Hon. Adewale Mauruff expressed concerns when he informed the committee that a particular project, which was contracted had its fund moved into direct labour without satisfactory explanation pointing out that there was no time survey was done on the road to ascertain the need to maintain that particular section as mentioned by FERMA.
Another area, which was disputed by the committee was the assertion by FERMA that it had about N8.9m still outstanding in their coffers just as a project administration fee of N9billion was frowned at.
FERMA, which was rescheduled to re-appear before the Committee on Monday could not produce enough copies of the requested documents. Instead of producing about 60 copies to be distributed to the members tendered only 11 copies. and only made its submission in the morning of the same Monday as against last Friday the deadline for submission of documents
While ruling on the matter, the chairman, announced that the Committee would take another criminal look into the books of the agency and requested for more specific documents, vouchers, pictorial evidences of all the projects.
In a unanimous conclusion, the committee set up an ad hoc committee, headed by Hon. Jeremiah Umaru, to physically verify the projects as presented by FERMA.
