A civic organisation, the Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD), had raised a petition that there was no evidence that the EFCC carried out an investigation into its petition regarding SMEDAN after two years.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has remained silent on a petition to probe the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), an agency of the Federal Government, for allegedly spending over N34million on training of ghost beneficiaries.
A civic organisation, the Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD), had raised a petition that there was no evidence that the EFCC carried out an investigation into its petition regarding SMEDAN after two years.
In the petition dated 20th February 2019, ENetSuD had notified the EFCC that SMEDAN conducted a N34million entrepreneurship and skill acquisition training for ghost beneficiaries.
The group further alleged that the beneficiaries’ list of the Entrepreneurship and Skill Acquisition training projects (that cost N34million) provided by SMEDAN was fake.
The group said it is not clear if any investigation was done by the EFCC or not.
“After two and half years of submission of this petition at the Executive Chairman’s Office in Abuja Headquarters, no feedback was received on any action taken by the commission (EFCC)," ENetSuD wrote.
The group further accused the EFCC of sabotage over its failure to appropriately deal with at least four petitions before it since 2019.
SaharaReporters had on Wednesday reported that the anti-corruption body in a letter to the EFCC on Wednesday, September 1, signed by its Coordinator, Dr Abdullateef Alagbonsi, and titled, “Request for Updates on four of our petitions investigated by the EFCC” expressed worries for lack of positive feedback from the commission since two years ago.
According to the letter, the petitions were mainly on Kwara projects executed by the Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
In a letter addressed to the Ilorin Zonal Commander, of the anti-graft agency, ENetSuD forwarded eight petitions to the EFCC regarding mismanagement and diversion of public funds released to various Ministries, Departments and Agencies for the execution of projects in Kwara State but has not got positive feedback over the years.
Some of the petitions dating as far back as 2019 have not yielded positive results as expected.
The letter had partly read, “We will like to be specific as follow: We neither know if EFCC carried out any investigation on our petition against SMEDAN nor have any idea if any action was taken to address our complaints in the petition (project 1).
“EFCC reportedly concluded investigation on Abata Sunkere drainage (project 3) and planned to prosecute the offenders, but we are not aware that the prosecution has commenced to date.
“After 2 years of our petition, we are still waiting for the result. EFCC reportedly directed the contractor handling Oja Gboro (project 5) to the site to complete the work according to the BEME, but he has not fully complied with the purported directive. After two years of our petition, we are still waiting for the result.”