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Group Accuses EFCC Of Failing To Probe SMEDAN, Others Despite Petitions

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A civic organisation, the Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD), has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, of failing to act on a petition it submitted to the agency.

The group disclosed that it had asked the EFCC, in its petition, to probe the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) for allegedly spending over N34million on training of ‘ghost beneficiaries’.

According to ENetSuD, the anti-graft agency refused to carry out any investigation after two years of submitting a petition.

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.

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The group further alleged that the beneficiaries’ list of the Entrepreneurship and Skill Acquisition training projects (that cost N34million) provided by SMEDAN was fake.

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 had in a letter to the EFCC on Wednesday 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 feedback from the commission since two years ago.

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According to the letter, the petitions were mainly on Kwara projects executed by the Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

ENetSuD said it 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 got no feedback.

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).

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“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.”