From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Kano State chapter, has warned Local Government Area administrators and commercial banks against plans by the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP)-led state government to misappropriate the councils’ funds amounting to over N8 billion.
The Kano APC chairman, Abdullahi Abbas, who gave the warning in a statement in Abuja yesterday further alleged that the planned expenditure was in anticipation of the political uncertainty over the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement on the disputed governorship election.
Abbas, therefore, cautioned the relevant institutions to halt the process of clearing the release of the funds at this critical period of the NNPP’s unreliability.
He claimed that the APC in Kano has gotten a copy of the letter of conveyance of approval from the ministry of local government directing the 44 local councils to release N101,655,000.38 million and N3,607,370,858.00 million each for the construction of Dan’Agundi and Tal’udu interchanges, respectively.
The state party boss also pointed out that the approval letter, which was sent to all council chairmen, and copied to the Auditor-General, local government audit and all zonal inspectors of the ministry, was for the contribution of the councils to the projects.
He noted that just last week, the government removed and posted new Directors of Personnel Management (DPMs) and treasurers to ensure that there are no hitches in muscling the local councils through the embezzlement of their funds.
He alleged that, “the decision to embark on such projects at this time has come under attack even by people within the NNPP’s fold and called on the government to reconsider it in the interest of the development of Kano State.”