Edu saga: Ministers were enlightened on procurement during retreat, says Joe Abah

Ministers participated in sessions focused on the procurement process during a retreat held in November, says Joe Abah, a former director-general of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR).

Abah said this following the alleged corruption at the ministry of humanitarian affairs and poverty alleviation.

Betta Edu, the suspended minister of humanitarian affairs, has come under intense scrutiny after a memo surfaced wherein she asked Oluwatoyin Madein, accountant-general of the federation, to transfer N585 million to a private account.

The suspended official also approved funds for flight tickets and airport taxis for the ministry’s staff to Kogi, a state with no airport.

The public sector financial regulations Act of 2009 prohibits the payment of public funds to the account of a private individual.

Section 713 of the law states that: “Personal money shall in no circumstances be paid into a government bank account, nor shall any public money be paid into a private bank account. An officer who pays public money into a private account is deemed to have done so with fraudulent intention”.

Amid the controversy, a leaked document showed that New Planet Project Limited, a company founded by Bunmi Tunji-Ojo, minister of interior, got a N438 million consultancy contract from the humanitarian affairs ministry.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Osita Chidoka, former minister of aviation, said the funds transfer request by Edu to the accountant-general is “only a reflection of the systemic failure” in the nation’s public service.

Chidoka claimed that the retreat for ministers did not address “serious governance issues”.

“It is evident that the ministerial retreat did not deal with serious governance issues,” he said.

He was, however, countered by Abah, who said he moderated the first day of the retreat and that the ministers were enlightened on salient governance issues.

“No o, Honourable Minister @osita_chidoka. We told them everything at the retreat o. I moderated the whole of the first day and Mr President got a message across to me not to rush the sessions. We told them everything and didn’t finish until 8pm,” he wrote.

Abah attached the programme of the event to his response.

In the programme, the retreat covered topics related to governance.

The sessions included: Roles and responsibilities of ministers, handled by Anyim Pius Anyim, former president of the senate and ex-secretary to the government of the federation; and management of the federal executive council: processes and procedures, facilitated by Oladapo Afolabi, former head of the civil service of the federation.

Other sessions were administrative processes in the civil service, relationships between the ministers, permanent secretaries and CEOs of parastatals, covered by Folasade Yemi-Esan, head of the civil service of the federation; financial regulations and fiscal management: process and procedures, led by Madein; and procurement processes in the public service, handled by Emeka Eze, CEO of TBP Solutions Ltd and former director-general of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).