PRESS STATEMENT: FINANCE MINISTRY HANDLING PAYMENT FOR GES INPUT SUPPLIES

Our attention has been drawn to a malicious and misleading publication onPointblanknews.com, an online medium, accusing the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Chief Audu Ogbeh, and his Minister of State, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, of bribery in connection with payment of fertiliser suppliers.

The write-up, replete with inconsistencies, contradictions, incorrect details and allegations that were generally baseless and particularly mischievous, alleged that FMARD is in charge of payments to contractors, when, in fact, the Federal Ministry of Finance is saddled with these. The online news medium needs to do thorough investigations before amplifying any allegations brought to it by any complainant.
The assertion that states agreed that 25 per cent of subsidy amount be deducted directly from their statutory monthly allocation from the federation account was a stale assertion, untenable in the present dispensation. The state governors, mostly grappling with economic downturn and depending on bailout from the federal government, had pulled out of the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme and made it categorical that they have no money to contribute because of their low revenues.

The online write-up also missed the essential point that the state governors have stated categorically that they would not pay the backlog of their contribution owed in the last administration in the course of the implementation of the GES. The Pointblanknews.com goofed also in their reference to an amorphous farmers’ group called FUISAN, which it claimed as being responsible for the success of the GES.

The Ministers of agriculture cannot be accused of mismanaging or receiving bribe from the money they don’t handle. The insinuations about payment selectively made to three companies to the neglect of others are misleading and a calculated attempt to discredit the two ministers in the FMARD.

For the avoidance of doubt, whoever has issues to raise about the payment of the GES contractors should direct their inquiries to the Federal Ministry of Finance. Every evidence and all the details relating to the payment of the GES contractors have been sent to the Minister of Finance who is handling the payment. We did not handle it. If the accusers have their facts and basis for their complaints they should put forward their evidence.

Office of The Honourable Minister
Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
Abuja

June 28, 2016