Road Contract: Reps Insist On Inviting Anenih

The House of Representatives has said that the former works minister and former chairman, Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Anenih, has questions to answer over about N20 billion largely unaccounted for during his tenure as minister.To this end, the Solomon Adeola Olamilekan-led House Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) at the weekend revealed to newsmen that there are plans to formally invite Anenih to explain the unaccounted monies.

Anenih in a letter address to the speaker had denied the House’s allegations. He said records available at the ministry of works would help the House Committee.

The unaccounted monies, representing contracts said to have been awarded during the former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, have made it virtually impossible for the committee to conclude its report on the Auditor General of the Federation’s (AGF) annual reports for 2006, the PAC Chairman disclosed.

“We want him to come so that we can conclude our findings because he has a case to answer; because if he does not come, it will make our findings inconclusive,” PAC Chairman told newsmen.

On Anenih’s claim that he has not been formally invited, Olamilekan said his committee had concluded plans to send the official summon this week.

Last November, Anenih was summoned by the same House Committee to answer questions over his purported disbursement of N2.318 billion for a road contract which the House of Representatives termed as ‘failed’ in Nasarawa State.

PAC said the Federal Executive Council reportedly acted on a memo Anenih sent to it to approve the contract. A report from the Office of the AGF, however, queried the contract after it was discovered that payments were made to the contractor for a job not done.

Adeola stated in November that the contractor was paid over N552m after the contract failed and the Federal Government terminated it.

The committee also found out that the same contractor, Torno Internazionale Nigeria Ltd, later sued the government and won a judgment of N1.3bn, a development Anenih is expected to clarify