From JIDAUNA YANUNG, Abuja
The Senate has given the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun seven days within which to give details of the award and disbursement of over N100 billion to companies engaged in the handling of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas, PCNG, project allegedly done in breach of the public procurement Act 2017.
This is coming on the heels of fresh plan by the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas to release another 130 billion to the unspecified number of companies. It Alluded to ignoring an earlier warning by the gas committee, the minister was reminded that spending taxpayers money on the said gas infrastructure development projects without National Assembly approval would amount to extra budgetary expenditure and gross violation of the Public Procurement Act. Chairman, Senate Committee on Gas Resources, Senator Jarigba Agom, (PDP Cross River North), in a letter asked the Finance Minister to forward to the committee, comprehensive records of the award and disbursement of over N100 million and list of companies engaged in the handling of the project. The committee had earlier commended President Bola Tinubu for the CNG initiatives but asked him to urgently send a supplementary budget to the National Assembly to cover such spending.
The committee, in the letter asking the Finance Minister to furnished it with details of the award and disbursement of the over N100 million sequel to a fresh petition by a group known as Good Governance and Transparency Front, which accused the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Presidential CNG Initiative of approving the disbursement of the funds to cronies without following the due process and the public procurement Act 2007. The group also in the letter letter to the committee, said PCNG had not made any progress, even with the disbursement of the N100 billion because the PCNG refused to engage experts in gas development in the execution of the project.
