All monies received by NEMA were spent judiciously – Maihaja

The Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Engr. Mustapha Maihaja has said that every money approved and given to the agency was spent judiciously.

He spoke yesterday in Abuja during a world press conference to clear the air on the alleged violation of Public Trust against NEMA by the House of Representatives Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness.

He said the House of Representatives accused him wrongly of mismanaging the sum of N33 billion, even though all the funds the agency received since he took over was less than N33 billion.

He said he never received any sum of 5.8 billion naira from the federal government, hence the Agency only got about N800 million while the other funds where paid to the contractors.

On the issue of rice donated by People’s Republic of China, he said they donated 6,779 metric tonnes of rice to Nigeria as part of their support to the North East humanitarian efforts and the equivalent to 135,550 units of 50kg bags of rice.

He said it all made a total of 271 containers which arrived at Apapa Port from China in five shipments between June and October 2017.

He said the total shipping and storage charges for the 271 containers was N518m, hence the actual cost of the donated rice was N2.24 billion.

NEMA, according to him, cleared the goods and made the payments on behalf of the Federal Government while the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was the consignee of the shipments.

On receipt and utilisation of N1.6 billion for flood victims in 16 states of the country, Maihaja said the money was released after the flood had occurred at different times in 12 states respectively over which the agency conducted assessments and established the needs before moving in the relief materials.

He added that the agency delivered the items to the 12 states between September and November 2017 and the remaining four states subsequently.