By Ummi Ismaeel,
Minna
Niger State House of Assembly (NSHA) has accused the state
Commissioner of Works, Alhaji Muhammed Ibrahim Panti, and his team of
Incompetence.
The lawmakers also alleged that they lacked the prerequisite skills to manage the affairs
of the ministry.
The Chairman, House Committee on Works and member representing Lavun
constituency, Hon. Jubril Ndagi Baba, said that he came to the conclusion
because documents presented on some of the projects across the state
were different from the reality on ground.
“Working documents are conflicting as if they were not from the same
ministry.
“We have three conflicting documents on the same matter
presented before the House and none of them contains the needed
information for the oversite functions of the committee,” he said.
Members of the committee contributing to the discussion during
the sitting said explanations by the Commissioner varied from
that of the Permanent Secretary, suggesting that the documents could
have been faked or forged since the commissioner said that he could not agree
with what was on the documents.
Addressing the commissioner and his team, Hon. Ndagi Baba expressed
disappointment that it took the ministry over a month to present the
documents and still had issues on the papers presented before the
Committee.
The committee, according to Ndagi, expects a more thorough job as a team before presentating to the Committee, insisting, “What we are witnessing today only shows sign of incompetence and indications
that there would be issues on the projects to be executed”.
Going through the documents for the renovation of the Government
House, the committee was amazed that the Ministry of Works was not the ones handling the project hence raising questions on credibility and
accountability by the Governor Abubarkar Sani Bello-led
administration.
The committee, which, however, said they were not out to witch-hunt anybody but only doing their jobs as people’s representative said, “Government
House is being renovated with tax payers’ money and people must know the projects and how their monies were being spent”.