Sixty four vehicles out of over 100 vehicles earmarked for recovery have been recovered by a committee set up by the Bauchi State government.
The committee was set to recover property illegally allocated to individuals by the immediate past administration of Malam Isa Yuguda
Air Commodore Ahmed Tijjani-Baba (rtd), the Chairman of the committee, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday that the vehicles were recovered from highly placed individuals, politicians, former commissioners, special advisers and top civil servants.
Tijjani-Baba said the vehicles were allocated to the beneficiaries by the last administration on May 28, 2015, a day to the swearing-in of the incumbent Governor, Mohammed Abubakar.
He said the committee discovered that the vehicles were purchased by the last administration between January and May 2015 and were auctioned to the beneficiaries without following the due process.
Tijjani-Baba quoted a regulation, which states: “Any vehicle that is not used for over three years has to be reverted to the service pool when the officer is leaving office.”
He said the regulation was illegally amended by the last administration in 2010, granting the state governor waiver powers to auction vehicles used below three years.
He said: “The clue gives him right to auction the vehicles upon an application by an allottee, but it has to be referred to the board of survey that will determine the price to be paid.
“A highly placed government official wrote on behalf of 10 other beneficiaries on May 28, 2015, without referring it to the board of survey, the body vested with the responsibility of auctioning such vehicles that were bought five months ago.”
Tijjani-Babs said some of the beneficiaries, who discovered the auction was faulty, voluntarily returned the vehicles to the committee.
The chairman vowed that the committee would ensure that all vehicles illegally auctioned were recovered.
Leave a Reply