The commission investigating the sale of prized assets belonging to Rivers State has been told that former Governor Rotimi Amaechi requested and got N35 billion from the state House of Assembly the same day the request was made and that the document the former governor used to apply for the funds were “missing”.
The Clerk of the assembly, Mr. Emmanuel Ogele, who made the revelation while testifying before the commission, said Amaechi had initially requested for N30 billion, which was approved, but later that same day requested for another N5 billion, which the lawmakers also approved.
He said the N35 billion given to Amaechi was from the state’s reserve funds, and that the former governor did not disclose what he wanted to use the money for. He said the lawmakers approved the release of the funds inside the Government House, at a time when the House of Assembly was shut down after the fracas that occurred in the hallowed chamber.
“I have made concerted effort to locate the written request all to no avail. I have also contacted some of the lawmakers who were present during the deliberations, but none of them has a copy. I also contacted the director of legal services who said that she also does not have it. “We were then operating form the Government House.
So, our packing and repacking of our documents now and then could have contributed greatly to what have happened. It is not unlikely that we might have lost the document through that process. “None of the lawmakers that participated in passing the resolutions that empowered the former governor to access that Reserve Fund returned to the House of Assembly and this had made it even more difficult in contacting the former legislators in order to get a copy of the former governor’s written request,” he said.
He said on October 20, the assembly approved another written request of the former governor to withdraw the sum of N19 billion from the state Reserve Fund and that made another request on May 18, 2015, for N1 billion. He said within 15 months, the Assembly approved N55bn through four written requests from Amaechi, and that the requests were unanimously approved by four distinct resolutions of the House of Assembly.
When Ogele was asked by the counsel to the commission, if it was right for such requests to be approved by the lawmakers without questioning the uses for the funds, he said: “As for the parliament,… events can occur on the same day.
We have our unique way of doing things in the legislature. “The House of Assembly has its own mechanism for checking the executive and that is why there is the clause that the governor cannot withdraw the said fund until the amendment becomes law. While responding to a question from the counsel, Ogele said: “Former governor Amaechi did not specify what he wanted to use the money he was requesting for in his written requests to the House of Assembly. I have no records relating to the former governor’s budget of expenditure regarding the N55 billion withdrawn from the Reserve Fund.”
