N5.8bn illegal approval: I did no wrong, Osinbajo replies House of Reps

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Friday faulted the report of the
House Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness which
allegedly indicted him over “emergency intervention of food
security to the North-East” in June 2017, when he was Acting
President.

Osinbajo’s position was contained in a statement made available
to journalists by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and
Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande.

In its report, the committee had alleged that N5,865,671,939.26
was approved and released in June 2017 vide a memo raised from the
Office of the Acting President, directing the Minister of Finance
and the Accountant-General of the Federation to so act.

The committee concluded that the payment made was in
contravention of the approval of the National Assembly.

“This conclusion is both false and misleading,” the statement
read.

Akande explained that the period in question was a time when the
Internally Displaced Persons and their host communities faced
severe food shortages throughout the North East, as a result of
successive poor harvests and abandoned farmlands, minimal
cross-border cash crop trade and lost economic opportunities.

He recalled that the United Nations World Food Programme had on
April 15, 2017 issued a warning that it would be reducing its
support to about 1.8 million IDPs by as much as 85 per cent, due to
corresponding reduction in funding by the donor countries.

He added that around the same time, the United Nations
Commission for Refugees in Geneva also warned of the growing risk
of mass deaths from starvation among people living in the conflict
areas.

He said, “The Federal Government moved urgently to prevent the
looming disaster by establishing a strategic food intervention plan
for the affected states.

“A Presidential Committee on Emergency Food Delivery to the
North East was convened and the committee met on the 13th of May,
2017 to kick off the process, with the then Acting President as
chairman.

“Other members of the committee included Minister of Finance;
Minister of Budget and National Planning; Minister of State for
Budget and National Planning; Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria; Deputy Chief
of Staff to the President; and the Senior Special Assistant in the
Office of the Chief of Staff to the President.

“Resulting from the deliberations of this and subsequent
meetings, the approval referred to in the House Committee’s report
was, in fact, based on a request raised by the Governor of the
Central Bank of Nigeria as facilitator of the National Food
Security Programme, vide a letter dated May 25, 2017.

He added, “As explained in the said letter, there was an
immediate need to distribute grains, including rice, maize, soya
beans and sorghum, to IDPs through the National Emergency
Management Agency.

“The only way to obtain the quantity of grains required was to
resort to the National Food Security Progamme earlier established
by the Federal Government as a means of shoring up its strategic
grain reserves.

“It was in consequence of the Federal Government decision to
urgently purchase the stored grains for distribution to Internally
Displaced Persons that the CBN made the proposal for approval of
30,905.08 metric tonnes at N5,229,685,333.26.

“Of that amount, the then Acting President eventually approved
N5,036,644,933.26, after excluding bagging costs.

“This was pursuant to the recommendation that bagging,
transportation and other logistics were best handled by NEMA.”

Akande said NEMA also originated a request to the Acting
President, dated May 25, 2017, requesting N829,026,456.00 for
general logistics, branding and packaging, tracking, security,
personnel, media and publicity and contingency costs of taking the
grains from their respective locations in Kano, Kaduna, Funtua,
Ibadan and Gombe to Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba and
Jigawa states.

These presidential approvals, he explained, were within the
constitutional authority of the Acting President, who needed to
take emergency steps to forestall acute food shortages in the
affected states.

He insisted that there was nothing illegal or unconstitutional
about them.

He said the approvals were duly communicated by the Deputy Chief
of Staff to the CBN Governor, Director-General of NEMA and the
Minister of Finance for implementation.

He added, “On account of the emergency nature of the
procurement, the House Committee’s assumption that the ordinary
rules of procurement would apply was wrong.

“Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act makes provision for
emergency procurement, in which case the procuring entity is
allowed to engage in direct contracting for goods and file a report
thereafter with the Bureau of Public Procurement.

“It is also wrong to assume that taxes and interests accruable
to government from these transactions in food items were
deliberately ignored or waived by neglect. Of course, we expect
that any loans advanced to any of the companies would be recovered
with the agreed interests, and that any profits made by such
companies would be liable to tax in the usual manner.

“The suggestion that the grains were never delivered to the
target states is also blatant falsehood. In actual fact, in order
to ensure effective distribution of the grains, an Emergency Food
Intervention Project Team was established, consisting of the
Director General of NEMA and representatives of the National
Security Adviser, Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Army Staff,
Chief of Naval Staff, Chief of Air Staff, Department of State
Security, Nigeria Police and the Presidency.”