TheCable

A committee which the Bauchi state government set up to recover properties illegally allocated to individuals by the immediate past administration in the state, says it has recovered 64 vehicles out of over 100 vehicles it listed for recovery.

Ahmed Tijjani-Baba, chairman of the committee, told NAN on Monday that the vehicles were recovered from highly placed individuals, politicians, former commissioners, special advisers and top civil servants.

He said the last administration allocated the vehicles to the beneficiaries on May 28, 2015, a day to the swearing-in of Mohammed Abubakar, the incumbent governor.

Tijani-Baba 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.

He quoted a regulation which states that “any vehicle that is not used for over three years, has to be reverted to the service pool while the officer is leaving office.”

He alleged that the last administration amended the regulation in 2010, granting the state governor waiver powers to auction vehicles used below three years.

“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,” he said.

“A highly placed government official wrote on behalf of 10 other beneficiaries on May 28, 2015, without referring it to board of survey, the body vested with the responsibility of auctioning such vehicles that were bought five months ago.”

He said that some of the beneficiaries who discovered that the auction exercise was faulty, voluntarily returned the vehicles to the committee.

The chairman said the committee would ensure that all vehicles illegally auctioned, were recovered, adding that in spite of threats issued by some of the beneficiaries, his committee would not relent in its effort at recovering all vehicles auctioned illegally.