How El-Rufai Paid N11.8bn Into Private Accounts

The final report of the Kaduna State House of Assembly Adhoc Committee set up to investigate the tenure of ex-Governor Nasir El-Rufai has accused the former governor of several corrupt practices.

In the 175-page report submitted to Governor Uba Sani on Thursday, the lawmakers accuse the ex-governor of syphoning billions of Naira through proxy companies and individuals.

Under “general findings on all MDAs” the lawmakers said the sum of N11.8 billion was paid to the account of two individuals under the guise of a joint venture for the proposed Kaduna light Rail project said to be a public-private partnership arrangement.

The report says the transaction was authorised by the office of the governor and the commissioner for finance in a move described as “possible diversion of funds through individual bank accounts.”

“Per the committee review of Indo Kaduna MRTS JV a joint venture for the proposed Kaduna light Rail project in public-private partnership with Skipper Nig. ltd.

“Funds were transferred to two (2) individual account as follows: Nuren Mumeen Damola; 10,899,300,000 and Uzosike Chinedu 188,380,906.76 11,087,680,906.76,” the report reads.

The report also accused El-Rufai of further diversion of N18 billion of state funds through the registration of SPV, Indo Kaduna.

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“The committee noted that the whole idea of registering an SPV was unclear and misnomer and out of sync with the industry practice. A further significant concern is that KDSG was not represented in the company by way of share allotment and directorship.

“The lead company allotted 99.99% of the company’s shareholding to an unknown entity i.e Indo Kaduna MRT Private Ltd. Additionally, KDSG is not represented in the JV company i.e Indo Kaduna MRTS JV Ltd.,” it stated.

The report also accused El-Rufai of “gross violation of governance” by giving authority to individuals who were not government officials.

The committee noted that “during the previous administration that certain individuals dominated the state affairs such as Mr. Jimmy Lawal who served as senior counsellor to the Governor. He gives approvals and all other government officials report to him for approvals despite the fact he was not holding any constitutionally recognised position.

“He also brought in several companies/contractors to the State, amongst which include Skippers Nigeria limited. These companies were fronts of the Senior Adviser-Counsellor which he used to defraud the State. “

El-Rufai was also accused of using Jimmy Lawal to procure “Unethical and unjustified loan facility resulting to additional debt burden to the state.”

“It was noted, that the council approved a loan facility of 7.5 billion to judiciously finance the KSPL JV Project.

“The facility was initially agreed to be obtained from Zenith bank but there was a change decision to rather take the loan from United bank of Africa whose interest rate was higher than that of Zenith by 2% which resulted to over 600 million interest rates. Additionally, it was gathered that the decision to obtained the loan was solely influence and negotiated by the Senior councillor to the Governor (Mr. Jimi Lawal).”