… say it’s a dent on Buhari’s zero tolerance for corruption.
Regulatory ministry too busy to checkmate recklessness – Insiders.
Council keeps mum on allegation
Some employees of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria and other relevant stakeholders have called on the Federal Government to probe what they described as recklessness on the part of those saddled with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Council.
The workers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, owing to fear of victimisation, expressed concern about the prospect of the profession in Nigeria even though some engineers, who reacted to the allegation, said the matter was not one that could immediately threaten the wellbeing of the sector.
While insisting that they were concerned civil servants, who would not want any stone left unturned in the current administration’s fight against corruption, they said it was pertinent for the Federal Government to investigate the culpability of the President of COREN, Mr. Kashim Ali; and the Registrar, Mr. Wopa Maliki, in the alleged maladministration in the Council.A highly placed stakeholder, who confided in our correspondent, said, “As the fiscal year 2018 ended, the leadership in the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) tried desperately to mop up the organisation’s funds through questionable and corrupt means disguised as payments for contracts and services.“This is akin to what they (allegedly) did in September 2015, when the President of COREN, Engr. Kashim Abdul Alli, corruptly took from COREN a sum of N10 million for the wedding of his daughter, which took place on 20th December 2015, at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, while the Registrar of COREN, Engr. Wopa Kamila Maliki, also took a sum of N5million for the wedding of his daughter, which took place on 3rd October 2015, in Ilorin, Kwara State.”
In a statement, titled, “COREN: The Betrayal of Leadership”, the concerned stakeholders added, “This fraud is easily traceable. The two lavish weddings are clear testimonies of this criminal offence. The two officers cleverly took advantage of loopholes and defrauded COREN, an agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria. It is through acts like this that they fund and maintain their lavish lifestyles and sponsor their children to expensive private schools at home and abroad, which, ordinarily, their salaries cannot afford.“These sad betrayal of leadership conducts are definite counters to the war against corruption, which is one of the cardinal policies of the Federal Government, and indeed one of the strongest reasons, which enabled this government to come into power. We hope that the federal ministry responsible for and saddled with the lawful supervision of COREN will act swiflty and appropriately in cleaning up these fraudulent and shameful acts.”
A staff of COREN, who also preferred to remain anonymous, said the leaders at COREN “and their cronies are known for factionalising staff and silencing any bold opposition with threats of dragging them to the COREN Tribunal.”
The two lavish weddings are clear testimonies of this criminal offence. The two officers cleverly took advantage of loopholes and defrauded COREN, an agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria. It is through acts like this that they fund and maintain their lavish lifestyles
“It is sad that while COREN registered engineering personnel are working hard and paying for their annual practising licences from their legitimate earnings, some people are busy defrauding the organisation. It is high time government stepped in quickly to clean the mess so that the shameful conducts of these officers would not affect the integrity of the organisation,” she said.
An impeccable source in the organisation said the multi-million naira cash weding gifts were allegedly raised through proxies, aside from alleged inflated contract awards.
This, he said, grossly negated the constitutional provisions guiding the relationship between management and COREN Council in financial matters of that magnitude as Council was neither consulted nor informed, which, he said, meant that there was no Council approval.“The president, who signed the funds for himself and the registrar lack the powers to do so without approval of Council,” he said.The funds, he alleged, were taken through the bank accounts of a personal assistant and an accounts department staff.“The particular transactions took place before the expiration of the 15th Sept deadline for compliance to TSA account,” an insider close to the transactions revealed.
The aggrieved employees said that the minister of the supervising ministry was vested with absolute control of COREN affairs, but claimed that the supervising ministry seemed to be “unaware of the financial recklessness perpetuated by the leadership of COREN in 2015 and till date, just as the ministry is not aware of the volume of funds, which flows into COREN.”“There is hardly a time when the minister or ministry moved to probe suspicious transactions in COREN, an agency reputed as one of the most funded regulatory agencies as a result of unending payments made to it annually by engineers who are either obtaining practising licences or renewing it,” a source in the supervising ministry said.
COREN did not remit more than N9 million to the federation account as at September 15 when the deadline elapsed, one of the stakeholders alleged.
Attempts by our correspondent to get the reactions of the president and registrar of COREN did not yield the desired results as a staff of the Council’s Media Office, Faith Ochai, said the president and registrar were not able to attend to the request at the time.
A text message to the President was not also replied as at press time.Q
