Babachir Lawal to be Grilled Today as Senate Re-invites Suspended SGF for Questioning (See Document)

Posted by Odinaka on Thu 27th Apr, 2017 - tori.ng

The suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal is to appear before the Senate today to answer questions after he was re-invited over the alleged mismanagement of funds.

Babachir Lawal

The Senate committe on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North-East has re-invited suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, for interrogation today over his alleged involvement in the misappropriation of funds allocated to take care of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in the North East.

The Upper House had last December, in an interim report, indicted Lawal for allegedly contravening the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2007, and the Federal Government Financial Rules and Regulations on the award of contracts under the Presidential Initiative on North-East (PINE).

Meanwhile, the SGF is at presently being investigated by a presidential panel over the allegation.

Not deterred by the fresh development on the matter, the Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating the matter, wrote a letter inviting Lawal to its meeting in continuation of the investigation.

The invitation letter to Lawal which was signed by the Clerk to the Ad-hoc Committee, Barau Bungudu, asked the suspended SGF to appear at a fresh public hearing scheduled for today by 10 am.

The letter reads in part: “You may recall that the Ad-hoc Committee had invited you to appear before it for the second time on Wednesday, 15th March 2017.

“The Committee has granted your request conveyed in your letter dated 22nd March 2017, and re-scheduled the meeting.

“By this letter, I am directed to formally invite you to appear before the Committee on Thursday, 27th April 2017.”