The House of Representatives of Public Accounts has ordered the Bank of Agriculture to within 90 days refund the sum of N3.5 million paid to one Mr. MK Nkwa as “exit package” following the latter’s role as interim chairman of the bank’s Shareholders Committee in 2014.
The ruling of the committee followed the consideration of a query by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation (AuGF), in which it urged the House to prevail on the bank’s management to refund the said sum considered to have been paid illegally.
The query which formed part B of the entire document flowed from the fact that MK Nkwa as at the time he was paid the said amount was, and still an employee of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Having had the query rehashed by officials from the AuGF’s office, the Managing Director of Bank of Agric, Prof. Danbala Danju in his response said the bank’s previous management sought and obtained the approval of the Minister of Agric at that time to enable it pay the exit package to then interim chairman of the shareholders committee, Mr. Nkwa.
He said the committee was properly constituted and the payment of exit package was in order.
A member of the committee, Hon. Sunday Adepoju (APC, Oyo), questioned the rationale for paying such an amount to the interim chairman when a substantive chairman was to be appointed to last longer than the interim, who enojoyed allowances for his services.
The MD said the minister on his power as acting chairman of the board of the bank approved the request by the bank to pay the exit package.
Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Hon. Kingsley Chinda (PDP, Rivers) demanded for documents backing the claims by the MD, saying that the oral evidence so given cannot be admitted as proof of compliance.
“There was no board, the minister was supposed to act, he now delegated to the chairman, shareholders committee, and our concern now is whether the minister can actually delegate such powers, since he was also wielding a power delegated to him as acting board chairman”, Chinda said.
The MD again responded saying, “we relied on the powers of the chairman, the minister of Agric at that time”.