Former Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu has denied the allegation by the All Progressives Congress (APC) senator representing Zamfara Central, Senator Kabiru Marafa that he (Chukwu) diverted N300 million meant for medical equipment in Zamfara State to Enugu State, describing it as a blatant lie.
Senator Marafa had at plenary, on Tuesday, accused the former Minister of conniving with the then Permanent Secretary in his ministry to divert the constituency project fund worth N300 million meant for the procurement of equipment for the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Gusau, to his alleged home state of Enugu, to procure mosquito nets.
In a statement issued by his former Special Assistant on Media and Communication, Dan Nwomeh, Prof. Chukwu explained “that based on the Public Procurement Act of 2007, parastatals and agencies awarded contracts within their approval thresholds. But where the contract value was above the limit set for them, they were duty-bound to send it to the Ministerial Tenders Board, which in turn sent the contracts above its approval threshold to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).”
Chukwu stressed that the Ministerial Tenders Board was chaired by the Permanent Secretary while the minister was not a member of the board, adding that with the approval of the contract by the board, the Federal Ministry of Health did not have any further role to play in the entire process.
He explained that with the Federal Ministry of Health’s role concluded, the implementing agency was expected to write to the office of the Minister of Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs requesting for payment.
He said that if the minister (of Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs) was satisfied with the due process and quality of job, he would write to the Federal Ministry of Finance requesting for the release of funds to the implementing agency, in this case the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Gusau.
Giving insight into what actually transpired, Chukwu recalled how the Director General of the Budget Office wrote a letter to the Federal Ministry of Health in December 2013, quoting a letter earlier written to him by Senator Marafa where he alleged that the ministry had refused to release the said fund. saying that he promptly minuted the letter to the Permanent Secretary and the Director of Finance and Accounts who stated that there was no such fund with the ministry, while producing the schedule of approved projects and funds released from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation as evidence. He said that he consequently wrote back to the Director General of Budget Office in March 2014, apprising him of the situation.