The Abia State House of Assembly’s Committee on Public Accounts, Anti-corruption and Due Process and the Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development (FENRAD) which is an anti-corruption, environmental and human rights civil society group have raised serious concerns with the worrisome development as obtained from an online media publication about an alleged illegal auctioning of vehicles by Secondary Education Management Board (SEMB).

These vehicles, about 17 of them were procured for service to the seventeen (17) Local Government Areas in Abia State and were without due process sold off at an auction price of three hundred and seventeen thousand naira only (N317,000).

It is both alleged that the SEMB did not declare those vehicles “BER” (beyond economic recovery) and viable for sale and that the SEMB is responsible for the missing or selling off of the buses parked at Ministry of Agriculture without due process.

In a joint statement signed by Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, Executive Director, FENRAD and Barr. Olusegun Bamgbose, Head Legal Team FENRAD, the SEMB is asked to show as evidence of due process, any auctioning advertorial published online or any national daily authorizing the said auctioning and the reports and pictorial evidence of the auctioning. Also, FENRAD would like to know if, after the sales of the vehicles, monies (in the form of proceeds) were channeled to the State coffers through the BIR (Board of Internal Revenue).

Meanwhile, the State House of Assembly’s Committee on Public Accounts, Anti-Corruption and Due Process is currently investigating this issue and has adjourned the hearing to Wednesday 27th January, 2021 at Room 1 of the House. The Minority Leader of the State House of Assembly, Mr. Chukwu Chijioke has affirmed that no stone would be left unturned in the ongoing investigation.