The management of Nigeria’s Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), on Thursday reacted to a news report by online newspaper- Sahara Reports on alleged sleaze perpetrated by Mounir Gwarzo and his cronies, regarding series of creamy contracts running into billions of Naira.
In a terse statement signed by Nasif Abdussalam, the commission’s head, corporate communications, who was also indicted in the report, titled “How SEC Director-General Illegally Paid Self Severance Benefit, Awarded Contracts To His Companies,” noted that allegations are not new.
The commission, he said, became aware of the allegations contained in that said Sahara Reporters publication since January 2017, following the receipt of a petition, but was silent as to whether any attempt was made to debunk them, as weighty as they seem.
Abdussalam however said the commission is now putting together an official response to be issued “shortly,” even as he assured “that no relevant policy was breached.
“As a tradition, the Commission follows laid down rules and regulations in all its activities, and in this particular case.”
One of the allegations in the report was that Gwarzo, until his appointment to replace Ms. Arunma Oteh, was Executive Commissioner, paid himself, against professional advice, N104.8m as severance package from a position he occupied for two years and four months, in “contravention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC Act), the Criminal Code Act and the Code of Conduct for Public Officers.”
Also, soon after assuming office in 2015, he allegedly spent N2bn on staff who voluntarily disengaged from the commission, a move that was meant to lower the commission’s overhead costs. The expenditure was however not captured the commission’s approved budget for that year, even as he soon began to hire replacements without advertising the vacancies.
The SEC DG, it is further alleged, received about N6m from the commission as payment for business class air ticket fare to travel to Hong Kong to attend the International Organizations of Securities Commission (IOSCO) Board meetings in October last year. This was in disregard of an April 2016 Federal Government directive (Vide Circular Ref. No. SGF. 6/S.2/X/545 of March 31, 2016), which explicitly states that all Chief Executives, Directors-General and other officials of similar ranks in Federal Government parastatals and agencies must undertake local and international travels in economy class.
Meanwhile, the commission, last week, announced the appointment of Akintola Williams Deloitte and four other firms for forensic audit of Oando Plc over alleged breach of corporate governance and other infractions. For this, Oando, who on Monday obtained a court injunction stopping the commission from suspending its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), is to bear the cost of the forensic audit put by the commission put at N160m.