Yobe Denies Receiving Relief Materials from NEMA
Yobe State government has told the House of Representative Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness that the state did not receive relief materials from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in the last one year.
The state government specifically claimed that no relief material was officially delivered to the state since the appointment Engr. Mustapha Maihaja as Director General of the agency.
In a memo tendered before the House Committee by Yobe Commissioner of Education, Alhaji Mohammed Lamin, the state sought the intervention of the federal lawmakers to look into the ways and manners relief materials were distributed by Maihaja leadership since his assumption of Office.
Lamin who presented the position of the state government insisted that the state has been short-changed and denied its entitlement from the relief materials being made available to disaster-ravaged areas in North-East, especially food items to the internally displaced persons.
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Although the NEMA boss who is at the centre of the investigative hearing on the alleged breach of public trust in the agency attempted to defend himself, the House Committee adjourned further hearing in the matter till next week Tuesday. This was occasioned by the discovery of the Committee that a list purportedly containing distributions of relief materials to some states in the North- East was not signed by anybody from the organisation.
The problem was compounded when the Director of Relief and Rehabilitation who also acted as Director Procurement of the agency, Mr. Kayode Fagbemi was directed to react to the claim of the Yobe State government and the list of the distribution tendered by Maihaja.
Kayode Fagbemi in his reaction told the committee chaired by the Deputy Minority Leader in the House, Hon. Chukwuka Wilfred Onyema that he did not sign the list of the purported distribution of relief materials tendered by his boss and that he was also not part of the maker of the list in spite of the fact that he was in charge of the department.
In the drama that followed Hon. Onyema told the actors in the controversy to prepare their arguments against Tuesday when the issues of relief materials for North-East would be fully deliberated upon.
By PRNigeria
