Reps summon Tony Anenih over N2.3bn failed road contract

by Jacob Segun Olatunji and Kolawole Daniel

Tony Anenih

THE House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts on Monday summoned former Minister of Works and former chairman, Board of Trustees, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Anenih, to defend his actions on a sum of N2.3 billion allegedly spent on failed road contract in Nasarawa State in 2006.To appear along with Chief Anenih before the committee are the site engineers, Federal Comptroller of Works and the Permanent Secretary of the ministry when the contract was awarded, while the committee headed by Honourable Solomon Adeola Olamilekan vowed to use the services of International Police (Interpol), to extradite the contractor, Torno Internazionale Nigeria Limited which absconded from the country after collecting the sum of N1.8 billion without executing the road project contract awarded.
Also, the committee is to write to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), to seek the identities of Nigerians who were on the board of the company which only executed 19 per cent of the contract.
According to Honorable Olamilekan, Chief Anenih was being invited in respect of a memo he presented to then Federal Executive Council (FEC), under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, which made the FEC to award the contract to the firm despite earlier strong advice that the firm had no technical capacity to handle the road project.
The committee, however, expressed reservation as to why such a huge amount of money would go down the drain under the watchful eyes of those at the helms.
The Auditor General of the Federation, had in its 2006 audit report alleged that the failed road contract was awarded for N2.3 billion out of which N552 million, was paid before the contract was terminated. The contractor later went to court and obtained court judgment of N1.3 billion against the Federal Government for terminating the contract.
In a related development, the committee has summoned another contractor along with site engineers and Federal Comptroller of roads over another failed N1.45 billion road contract in Enugu State.
NigerianTribune