El-Rufai’s Cabinet Members Dismiss Assembly Report as Fact-Challenged and Malicious

El-Rufai’s Cabinet Members Dismiss Assembly Report as Fact-Challenged and Malicious

A group of former cabinet members from the Kaduna State Government, led by former Governor Nasir El-Rufai, have issued a statement denying allegations made in a recent report by the Kaduna State House of Assembly. The report, which was adopted on June 5, 2024, accused the former administration of various financial misdeeds, including money laundering and mismanagement of loans.

The former cabinet members described the report as “sensation-driven” and “fact-challenged,” stating that it was motivated by malice and conducted with patent unfairness. They affirmed the integrity of their administration, which they said had made significant contributions to the development of Kaduna State between 2015 and 2023.

Specifically, they denied allegations of money laundering, stating that there was no basis for the claim. They also disputed the report’s findings on loan management, stating that all loans were properly secured and utilized for development projects. They further stated that the report’s authors had failed to demonstrate any understanding of the matters they purported to investigate.

The former cabinet members also challenged the report’s claims on contract awards, stating that all contracts were awarded in compliance with due process and the Kaduna State Public Procurement Authority Law.

They reiterated their commitment to defending their reputations and promised to provide further updates in due course.

Read the full report below:
Convert this statement by cabinet members of former Kaduna Governor, Nasir Elrufai to news report: A Press Statement by Members of the Kaduna State Executive Council, 2015-2023

1. This statement is issued as a preliminary response to the sensation-driven and fact-challenged claims made by the Kaduna State House of Assembly during its sitting on Wednesday, 5th June 2024 when it adopted a document titled “Report of Ad-hoc Committee on Loans, Financial Transactions, Contractual Liabilities and Other Related Matters of the Government of Kaduna State from 29th May 2015 to 29th May 2023”. In spite of repeated requests and inquiries from us and various colleagues of ours, no certified true copy of this Report has been released to any
persons who were mentioned in the report or who testified before the Ad-hoc Committee in response to its summons or who were indicted (some without ever
being summoned or heard by the Ad Hoc Committee). In the light of non-release to us of the certified copy of the Report, this statement relies on the document referred to above that began circulating on social media shortly after the Kaduna State House of Assembly adopted the said document on Wednesday, 5th June 2024.
2. We affirm the integrity of the Administration in which we served the people of Kaduna State between May 2015 and May 2023 under the leadership of Malam
Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai. In eight years, this Administration in which we were greatly privileged to serve impacted Kaduna State with innovations that accelerated the
modernisation of the State, prioritised human capital development, expanded its
infrastructure, improved its business standing, promoted equality of opportunity.
During Malam El-Rufai’s tenure, his Administration, in spite of our State’s public safety challenges, was undoubtedly established as one of the best in Nigeria.
3. We dismiss this Report and the processes associated with it in their entirety. The Report is the outcome of a process motivated by malice and conducted with patent unfairness. It is irredeemably riddled with falsehood, predetermined conclusions, and misrepresentation. The Report is bereft of rigour and accuracy and fails to demonstrate any understanding of the various matters it purported to investigate.
The authors of this Report and their sponsors seem to have calculated that rigour is not required in a document whose purpose is to splash mud and smear reputations. We shall exercise our right to defend our hard-earned reputations, but
without prejudice to that day, we wish to rebut and refute the avalanche of dirty lies dressed up as a clean official report.
4. The Ad-Hoc Committee concocted several claims, intended to grab headlines,
which we challenge below:
a. Contrary to the allegations, we affirm that there is no basis for the wild claims about money laundering. This baseless allegation is the peak of the
defamatory agenda to which the Ad-hoc Committee and the Kaduna State House of Assembly willingly lent themselves as spineless accomplices. It is
crafted to sound weighty, but it is just hot air pushed out to excite passions and stoke outrage. Not a shred of evidence was produced by anyone before the Committee to justify this malicious claim that was plucked out of the air.
b. Not a kobo, speak less of N423bn, was ever siphoned out of Kaduna State Government coffers during our tenure. The Ad Hoc Committee indulged in voodoo accounting merely to concoct a scandal. We note that this same
Kaduna State House of Assembly received and accepted the Audited Accounts of the State for each year from 2015 to 2022, but now wants the public to disregard the formal, legally and constitutionally recognised public
accounts of the State in favour of its wishy-washy, malicious but incompetent and poorly calculated attempt at legislative character assassination.
c. Loans:
i) The government of Malam Nasir El-Rufai inherited external debts of USD234m in 2015. It followed due process in securing its loans and the testimony of Aminu Shagali, who was the Speaker between 3 June 2015 and early 2020 confirms this! To enhance the delivery of its progressive governance agenda for Kaduna State, the El-Rufai Administration approached the World Bank for credit. The Board of the World Bank approved the credit in June 2017 as a Performance for Result (P4R) credit of USD350m. The conditions for the grant of this credit were entirely performance-driven. Kaduna State is so far the only subnational in Nigeria that has received this kind of credit.
ii) Like other loans raised by the El-Rufai administration, the USD
350m World Bank Performance-for-Result (P4R) loan was properly utilised in furtherance of the development of Kaduna State. The documentation submitted in support of the loan application was subjected to the due scrutiny of the fiscal authorities of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the board of the World Bank. At the conclusion of the P4R programme which ran from 2017 to 2021, the World Bank rated its implementation as satisfactory. Amongst the most visible fruits of this loan are the massive infrastructure projects under the Urban Renewal Programme.
iii) The Report put the foreign loan exposure of the State at USD578.14m but went on to attribute foreign loans amounting to over USD2bn to the El-Rufai Administration. It cited an XDR (World Bank Special Drawing Rights) 494.6m loan for the Agro-Climatic Resilience Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) programme, of which only USD2m was disbursed before 29 May 2023, and all of which was left intact for the incoming government; thereby simultaneously demonstrating ignorance of the nature of Special
Drawing Rights and grossly exaggerating amounts disbursed to the State. The report also listed the following loans totalling over
USD600m that were secured, but with NOT A CENT DISBURSED to the State before the exit of the El-Rufai Administration in May 2023:
• USD280m for the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP)
• USD150m for the Special Agro-Processing Zone (SAPZ)
• USD130.7m for the Bus Rapid Transport System
• USD62.8m for the Reaching out of School Children
(ROOSC) Project
• USD20m for the Livestock Productivity and Resilience
Project (LPRES)
It is not too late for the current administration in Kaduna State to contract out of these loans since it has such aversion to borrowing. Other States in Nigeria may
then be able to benefit from the same.
d. Projects Commissioned by the Present Administration.
We state categorically that practically every project initiated or commissioned by the current Administration in Kaduna State is based on programmes begun under the El-Rufai government, or whose funding was secured by that government. This includes the Forensic Lab and some projects funded by development loans, like the construction of six Science Secondary Schools (Islamic Development Bank), reconstruction and expansion of secondary schools under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for
Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) of the World Bank, revamping and equipping of 290 Primary Health Centres (World Bank P4R), or loans secured by the El-Rufai administration but disbursed to the State after its
exit, like the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP).
How can the Kaduna State House of Assembly claim that the loans were not properly utilised when the projects for which they were obtained are the only things the current Administration has been able to show to the citizenry in the past year? Is it logical or credible to disclaim and ridicule loan-taking while basking in the projects paid for by these same loans?
5. Due Process in the Award of Contracts Contract awards under the El-Rufai Administration followed due process in every
case, in compliance with the Kaduna State Public Procurement Authority (KADPPA) Law. In the first term, the State Government spent heavily on publishing tenders in national newspapers. Single sourcing is part of the contracting options provided for in Section 59 of the KADPPA Law, 2016, as follows:
a. Two-stage tendering
b. Limited source tendering
c. Single source contracting
d. Repeat orders
e. Shopping; and
f. Negotiated Procurements
The Law also permits the award of multiple construction projects to a single company/contractor. The El-Rufai Administration adopted the framework contracting model as an effective way of accelerating delivery by proven
contractors and for the provision of continuous services, which method was repeatedly vindicated by the rapid pace at which projects were executed and
commissioned.
6. The Deloitte Audit
In its quest for accountability and transparency, the El-Rufai Administration commissioned Deloitte to conduct a forensic audit of State Government accounts from 1999 to 2019, the end of its own first term that it had just completed at the time of commissioning Deloitte. The Deloitte forensic report was intended as an objective basis for internal corrective measures and to identify perpetrators within
the government. The report of the Deloitte audits, as standard practise requires, was subject to substantiation and validation by a committee set up by Malam Nasir
Ahmad El-Rufai to produce a White Paper on its findings.
The Ad-hoc Committee did not undertake an in-depth and logical review of the administration’s financial records. Instead, it plagiarised the Deloitte audit without any even noting that its findings had not been validated. The initial Deloitte audit also did not cover 2020 to 2023, so the assignment was extended to cover the period. We left office without receiving the updated Report and responses to the
queries raised during its validation. The Committee’s shameless use of unvalidated Deloitte findings that were clearly
still a work-in-progress introduces bias and undermines the credibility of their Report. We note the Ad Hoc Committee’s Report’s silence about certain individuals
mentioned in the Deloitte report, particularly those in positions such as the Commissioner of Finance, Accountant General, and Executive Chairman of the
Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) for the period 2015 to 2019.
Some of these officials are still serving the current State Government in other roles. While it included the tenure of the Commissioner of Finance between 2015 and 2019 among their recommendations for further investigation, there is no evidence
that the Ad-hoc Committee extended any invitation to him.
7. Observed conflicts of interest
While recruiting accomplices from the legislature, the authors of this plot failed to properly scrutinise willing candidates to avoid bias and conflicts of interest. They
gleefully partook in “investigating” government agencies with which they are having or have had business dealings or tax-related issues. In certain cases, even after a
potential conflict of interest had been pointed out, they did not bother to recuse themselves! We will be providing detailed information about the various conflicts of interest among the committee members but one of the most glaring is the fact that an active member of the Ad-hoc Committee, Barrister Mahmud Lawal Ismaila, is also a biological brother of Governor Uba Sani.
Conclusion
We reiterate that this statement remains a first response to the obtuse report issued by the members of the Kaduna State House of Assembly. At the appropriate time, every
single allegation made in the report will be shown for what it truly is – a planned, greasy,
and poorly hatched and incompetently executed effort to damage our individual records
and reputations along with that of one of the most capable and dedicated public servants
in Nigeria. In the meantime, we thank you for your attention and request you to be on standby for further updates.

Signed, 14th June 2024, on behalf of members of the Kaduna State Executive Council, 2015 to 2023.

Signatories:

– Jafaru Ibrahim Sani, former Commissioner, Ministry of Environment
– Hafsat Mohammed Baba, former Commissioner, Ministry of Human Services and Social Development
– Umma Yusuf Aboki, former Commissioner, Planning & Budget Commission
– Bashir Saidu, former Commissioner, Ministry of Finance; former Chief of Staff.