fORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY Bankole awarded multi-billion naira contracts to fictitious companies –House Clerk Clerk of the House of Representatives, Mohammed Sani Omololu, has told a Federal High Court in Abuja that multi-billion naira contracts allegedly awarded to fictitious companies by the House of Representatives under the leadership of Dimeji Bankole, as Speaker, were approved by a body whose chairman was Bankole himself. Justice Elvis Chukwu also heard on Wednesday that a large chunk of the contract sum was paid into an account maintained in the Kaduna branch of Zenith Bank and operated by a company – Multigate Resources Services Limited – whose address could not be traced by investigators. Omololu and an operative of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Ahmed, made the revelations while testifying at the trial of Bankole. Bankole is standing trial over allegations of abuse of budgetary allocation, abuse of process of contract award and abuse of office in relation to some contracts awarded while he was in office. Testifying as the fourth prosecution witness, Omololu told the court that the contracts, in relation to which Bankole was being tried, were approved by the Body of Principal Officers of the House of Representatives, headed by Bankole. He named other members of the body as the Deputy Speaker, House Leader, Deputy House Leader, Chief Whip, Deputy Chief Whip, Minority Leader, Minority Whip, Deputy Minority Whip and Deputy Minority Leader. Led in evidence by prosecution lawyer, Festus Keyamo, Omololu told the court that at the time the controversial contracts were awarded, Bankole was the Speaker of the House. According to him, “In this particular case, it was a contract that can only be taken by the Body of Principal Officers of the House of Representatives. “For the purpose of approval of contracts, the Body of Principal Officers of the House of Representatives under the chairmanship of the Speaker makes the approval.” Ahmed, the third prosecution witness, who concluded his evidence on Wednesday, had told the court at the last hearing that the House under Bankole awarded contracts to some companies with unverifiable addresses. The witness, who was equally led in evidence by Keyamo, told the court that further investigation revealed that money for the contracts were paid into a Zenith Bank account in Kaduna, owned by Multigate Limited, one of the companies purportedly awarded the contracts and whose addresses investigators could not trace. He said when the investigators could not trace the addresses supplied by some of the companies to which the contracts were awarded, they went back to the National Assembly to enquire how the contractors were paid and learnt they were paid through cheques. “We wrote to the banks and requested for the statements of the accounts. We analysed them and discovered that the cheques were cleared with one account called Multigate Resources Limited with Zenith Bank, domiciled in Kaduna,” he added. Ahmed further told the court: “We also collected the account opening packages and we discovered that it had the same address with the company we could not locate. “We discovered some telephone numbers on the contracts quotation letters submitted by the companies. We called the numbers, but no one answered,” he added. The trial continues today.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:04:07 +0000
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