By Mansur Abdulahi, Abuja
…..call on President Buhari to initiate probe
Aggrieved contractors of the Ministry of Agriculture have accused the big wigs of the ministry of unduly holding on to their N17 billion approved for the payment of their 2018 contract monies.
The contractors gathered at the secretariat of the Ministry on Friday carrying placards with different inscriptions calling on the Ministry’s big wigs to pay them their monies. They maintained that the only logical reason the Ministry has refused to pay them is because the money has been embezzled.
The Coordinator of the aggrieved contractors, Chidi Kanu explained to our correspondent that they had to resort to protesting because all efforts to get the Perm Sec pay them has proved abortive.
Explaining further, Chidi said, “We worked since 2018 and we delivered base on the contract they gave to us. They used our project to campaign for this government and at the end of it all they said there is no money. But upon verification we found out that ninety-eight percent of budget appropriation was released to the ministry and they diverted our money and used it to buy a carcass, a building that they would spend billions to put into use.
“What we are asking is for President Muhammadu Buhari to be a father and come to our plight. We can no longer pay our children school fees, our landlords are disturbing us. All we are asking is, please Mr President help us let us get paid. We are not violent, we are helpless, we cannot run anywhere, and we leave here. Let us be paid.
“We have held several meeting with the Per Sec. He promised us that he was going to pay us, rather he diverted the money and awarded fresh contracts to his cronies without even any open bid. The Perm Sec uses his discretion to issue contracts to people he likes without first paying us. This is 2020 and he is even planning to award a new contract without paying the 2018 contractors.
“We need our money because we are indebted to our banks, we are indebted to our landlords, and we owe school fees. We have bills to pay. Generally, we are been owed about seventeen billion but they are adding up. We don’t have up to the Forty eight billion Naira they are talking about. For 2018 contractors they are owing us seventeen billion Naira, but they are telling us they are owing forty eight billions Niara. They are just pilling up the money to embezzle it.
We have been coming here uncountable times, in fact the last time the Perm Sec told us to go and do anything we want, that he was not going to pay us. We have been risking our lives, holding meeting with him and at one time he even told us, we have him on tape that the minister of Finance is his sister that we should go and sleep and at the long run he told us to go to hell that he was not going to pay us,”
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