Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration of the House of Representatives has said it would probe all contractors that abandoned projects at the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, Akwa Ibom State.
The Chairman of the Committee, Khadijah Bukar Abba Ibrahi, disclosed during an interactive session, noting that all contractors who abandoned projects from the inception of the institution would be investigated and made to account for every Kobo collected to serve as a deterrent to others.
This came following a presentation by the Rector of the Academy, Commodore Duja Emmanuel Effedua (retd) before the committee on oversight function to the Academy on Thursday.
It also resolved to summon the leadership of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency over failure to remit the statutory 5% allocation to the Academy for over a year now.
Ibrahim, represented by the Vice chairman of the committee, Hon Uduak Ududoh, PDP, Akwa Ibom, explained that the committee would write to the institution on getting back to Abuja, stressing that the practice of abandonment of projects after taxpayers’ money had been paid must not be allowed to continue.
“We will look back, to investigate the projects even from the inception of the school and so, when we get back to Abuja, we will meet as a committee and mandate the clerk to the institution because we cannot continue this way.
“They (contractors ) are Nigerians, and if they have the opportunity, they will embezzle the money and abandon the projects. So, when we get back, we will look at these things, it is Nigeria money that is involved,” he said.
The chairman equally ordered the Rector to expose those staff behind the leakages he talked about in his presentation, noting that if they are not exposed and appropriate action taken against them, it would not serve as a deterrent to others.
The committee lamented that the statutory 5% allocation from NIMASA has not been paid for upward of one year and therefore resolved to summon the agency’s leadership before it.
The Rector had in his presentation before the committee, expressed worries over the state of infrastructural decay in the academy, stating that the “situation was such that the the International Maritime Organization threatened to delist Nigeria as a place where Maritime students should be trained”.
He stated further that this happened because people who had the opportunity of running the affairs of the institution were after worldly things.
