The suspended Managing Director of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), Mr Adebayo Kolawole Somefun on Monday adduced reasons to why the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige was after him, saying that he bluntly refused to approve some illegal requests brought to him while in office.
Somefun who made the disclosure before an Ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives investigating the reported arbitrary breach of presidential directives on staff discipline by Ngige and the Minister of Power, in NSITF, and NBET and TCN respectively, also alleged that one of his perceived sins was that Ngige wanted to introduce a “special promotion” scheme for the Fund
He said that he totally rejected the move on the ground that it was in breach of the Civil Service Rules, and which could also breed bad blood amongst staff.
According to the suspended MD, part of his problems was the payment of about N85 million to a consultant, for training yet to be carried out, on the instruction of Ngige, an action he said was carried out in his absence
“I have to personally issue the GM Finance a query, and I think that was one of my sins”.
He described as “totally false”, the allegation that his Executive Committee and the Management team of the NSITF were insubordinate, by refusing to reduce the budget of the Fund by over 20 per cent, as instructed by the FEC, stressing that at no point was he aware of such directives.
Reeling out a lot of innovations his team had brought, to redeem the image of NSITF, Kolawole lamented that “It is painful that when people have done a lot to bring the Fund out of the hall of shame, they are being condemned with all manner of falsehoods, instead of being commended.”
He insisted that the Minister’s suspension order on him breached both the Civil Service guidelines and the principle of fair hearing.
He accused the Minister of totalitarianism, saying “how can an interested party be the one to appoint an investigative panel? This is against the principles of fair hearing.”
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He said the Minister was being economical with the truth when he told Nigerians that they spent about N3.4 billion on a non-existing training and tendered documents before the committee which he claimed were evidence of approvals for the training, beneficiaries, certificates awarded to them and payment made to them through the remita platform being operated by the fund.
Somefun said the Minister personally wrote letters to the Bureau of Public Procurement and the office of the Auditor-General to investigate the fund but did not wait for the report from the two agencies before suspending them.
He also alleged that the Secretary to the NSITF board was appointed by the Minister without following due process, while Minister unilaterally suspended the Acting President of NECA from attending the board meeting of the fund.
Both the suspended Executive Director, Finance and Investment, Jasper Azuatalam and Executive Director, Operations, Kemi Nelson said their suspension came to them as a shock as the reasons adduced for their suspension were strange to them.
Azuatalam said “I called the letter of suspension copy and past. The same letter they used to suspend the MD was the same letter given to me. I am not a member of the tenders board and have nothing to so do with procurement. But that was the reason for my suspension.”
Mrs Kemi Nelson who said she had built a reputation for herself and would not want anybody to tarnish it also said she was accused of an offence he had nothing to do with and suspended.
According to her, “my duty is operations. I have nothing to do with finance and procurement. I don’t spend money, I only bring in money into the fund. But they are accusing me of things that are outside the purview of my office”.
The committee also took evidence from the Permanent Secretary in charge of Insurance in the Office of the Head of Service who incidentally is the wife to the Minister of Labour and Employment.
She told the committee that the letter she wrote to the Ministry of Labour was addressed to the Permanent Secretary and that the letter was to be communicated only to treasury funded agencies under the Ministry and not to NSITF which is not a treasury funded agency.
She explained that she was only performing her duty as directed by the Head of Service, saying “I did not write to the Minister but to the Permanent Secretary. I don’t have the power to write to Ministers. Only the Head of Service has that power”.
Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Mariam Onuoha said the Committee was set up to investigate Procedural Breach of the Presidential Directives by both the Ministers of Labour and Employment and Power, the Alleged Breach in Procurement Procedures and Financial Malpractices and Malfeasance by those Agencies.
She said that the House considered the allegations to be of serious nature, very weighty, grave and worthy of the attention and concern generated at Public discuss.
According to her, “the matter before us today is the case of the Hon. Minister of Labour and Employment who was alleged to unilaterally without due process prescribed in the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund NSITF Act, procured Presidential Directive, to suspend the Top Management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), over alleged infractions of the Public Procurement Act and Financial Regulations by the Top Management of the NSITF.”
She told the Committee that she received a letter from Minister that he was indisposed and so would not be in attendance, suggesting a time slot for Thursday, since he would be attending the FEC meeting on Wednesday.
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