STEALING BAZAAR IN NIGERIA'S AIRSPACE AGENCY.

EFCC FREEZES NAMA TOP CHEIFS' ACCOUNTS

The Federal Government has frozen the personal accounts of top managers of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) found N3.2billion in their accounts with choice properties and investments in Lagos.

The EFFC found N700 million in the personal accounts of the Acting General Manager ICT, Akinrinbido Bolarinwa, popularly known as Bido; General Manager, Procurement, Olumuyiwa Adegorite N800million.
The largest find was traced to the General Manager (Finance), Segun Nurudeen Agbolade AKA General with over N1b with three petrol stations, named Ajoke Resources in Agege of Lagos and another shopping mall in Ikeja, Lagos.
Agbolade is alleged to own over 200 tricycles in Ikorodu, Lagos that are used for transportation business.

Besides, N148 million was traced to the account of female air traffic engineers who is a project manager in NAMA.
Also under investigation is the Assistant General Manager (Electromechanical System), Atiku Abubakar. They risk confiscation of the monies and assets found with them and possible prosecution.

Also being investigated is the 64 million Euros Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria (TRACON) project which has come under scrutiny, with air traffic controllers complaining that the safety of the country’s airspace had been compromised severally. To them, “there is nothing in reality about total coverage of Nigerian airspace.”
Meanwhile, a top official of the EFCC said more arrests would be done this week of virtually all the management staff of the agency for what the source described as mind boggling ‘fraud’ in NAMA and virtually all the parastatals in the aviation ministry.

Furthermore, those to be picked according to the anti-graft agency are former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, Director, Finance and Accounts, Mrs. Clara Aliche. Aliche was a former Bank accounting officer to Stella Oduah. She was appointed as Director in NAMA after she was relieved of her job.
The EFCC had stormed the headquarters of NAMA last week Friday.

After ten hours of interrogation, the commission arrested the managing director, Ibrahim Abdulsalam, Adegorite and Deputy General Manager Finance, Amos Akpan after Agbolade allegedly escaped arrest. He has been declared wanted by the agency.

Abdulsalam was appointed NAMA MD in March 2014. He served as General Manager, Procurement in the organisation before his appointment over and above his seniors.
He succeeded Mr. Nnamdi Udoh who was sacked from office on March 4, 2014. NAMA is a parastatal under the ministry of Aviation.

The arrests of top NAMA chiefs has sent shock waves down the spines of top officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT).

FAAN is the cash cow of the aviation industry.
The EFCC arrested them to explain how Abdulsalam and his predecessor both highhandedly signed off payments of over N3 billion on ‘questionable contracts’ between 2013 and 2015.
Documents obtained by woleshadare.com shows that the bulk of these payments were for clearing of containers and customs duties which amounted to N2, 101, 689, 304.14 within the period in review.
Most of these clearing/customs duties payment were said to be non-transparent as the agency had never really undertaken any, ‘major importation that warrants payments in tens of millions of naira at different times as claimed by the management.’

To further show how questionable some of the payments were, the trail of approvals and payments revealed a lack of due process and transparency in approving the sums involved which in most cases were said to be above the approval limits of the MD of NAMA and should have either been referred to the Board or the Minister of Aviation.

An example was a request for payment by Delosa Limited of N39, 650, 000.00 for ‘cost of customs clearing and haulage of 10×40 FT ZIMU 1169653, ZIMU 4029722, ZCSU 2985348, GSLU 2025405, TRLU 9623242, CLHU 9634293, FSCU 2596026, TGHU 4687174, ZCSU 2596026, and EMCU 5201729 STC Wire Managers Scale Electronics addressed to the MD in a letter dated October 16, 2014.
Of the total amount in the letter, N25, 941, 750 was submitted as payment for duty while the balance of N13, 708, 250 was for agency fee.

Investigations by woleshadare.com shows that the letter was received in the office of the MD on October 9, 2014 who in turn minuted it to General Manager (Finance) same day. By that same day, payment process had been concluded without any trail of the letter going through other key departments like legal and audit for authentication and confirmation of the contract as stipulated by public service rules guiding NAMA.

In another shocking discovery, of the N3, 147, 866, 524.14 paid out by the different chief executives of the agency, the sum of 748, 139, 386 was expended as ‘expenses made through special officers as mandated to the banks’ while another N298, 037, 834 was spent on ‘overseas travels’ through Multeng Travel agency, a company owned by the wife of arrested General Manager, Procurement for NAMA, Adegorite.
With details of direct payments to bank accounts of staff members of NAMA showed a breach of civil service rules, majority of staff in the agency had severely complained of lack of adequate overseas training, confirming leads that most of the payments under the two sub heads were questionable.
Spokesperson for NAMA, Mrs. Jumoke Adetona could not be reached as her telephone numbers could not be reached for comments.

The EFCC is also acting on a myriad of petitions to probing litany of sleaze among which are allegations of purported payment of an inflated amount as rent for a single apartment to accommodate the Managing Director.
Against laid down financial rules and regulation, the agency recently made payment to a company, Moloney Nig. Ltd through Fidelity Bank, account number 5080013048 dated May 12, 2015 to the tune of N43 million for only two year rent.
The accommodation is said to be the official residence of the Chief Executive Officer of NAMA, even though the agency has residential accommodation for management staff within the airport environment, where even some officers who retired are still occupying.
NAMA is also under investigation for allegedly not conforming to competitive bidding in a manner which is transparent, timely, equitable for ensuring accountability and conformity with the Act and regulations of the Public Procure Act.

The N1.14billion and N1.89 billion contracts awarded to MACE Aviation on November 27, 2013 for one year maintenance agreement for obsolete navigation equipment is said to be a fraud because it did not pass through the Bureau of Public Procurement.
Curiously, the same equipment that has been managed by NAMA engineers for decades despite technological challenges occasioned by lack of spare parts were contracted out to contractors the engineers said had no technical know-how to handle same.

Penultimate year, NAMA workers especially air traffic controllers protested that the direct procurement s which the Ministry of Aviation obtained a certificate of no objection begs for scrutiny since, “selective tendering can only be applied where there is only one manufacturer of such equipment.”

According to them, “In the event where there are more than two or more manufacturers, the Public Procurement Act allows open tender only. Granting certificate of no objection to MACE Aviation to the tune of over N20 billion therefore is a complete violation of sections 39, 40, 42 and 43 of the PP Act.