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Title : Nigeria Airways' US$400m graft exposed in damning report
By :
Date : 24 November 2003 0511 hrs (SST)
URL :
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/58750/1/.html
LAGOS : The Nigerian government released a report detailing a 400 million
dollar graft case involving former ministers and other prominent figures who
helped ruin Nigeria Airways.
Two former aviation ministers -- Alabo Graham-Douglas, a former presidential
candidate, and retired naval Admiral Patrick Koshoni -- as well as several
former managing directors and about 90 top officials are named in the report.
Other prominent Nigerians, as well as travel agencies and insurance firms,
including the state-owned insurance firm NICON, were also fingered in the
damning government white paper on the failed airline.
Maneuvering by those named in the report, submitted in May 2002, had
succeeded in keeping it under wraps until now. Some sought court injunctions
to prevent the report's release, while others also allegedly tried to bribe
the media from publishing it.
But many groups and individuals have urged the government of President
Olusegun Obasanjo to release the white paper to show the world that he was
serious about combatting corruption, a campaign he launched immediately after
taking office in 1999.
Obasanjo appointed a judicial commission in 2001 to investigate the
activities of the ailing airline during Nigeria's last period of military
rule from 1983 and 1999.
The report recommended the recovery of more than 400 million dollars from the
indicted companies and top ex-officials, some of whom will also be prosecuted
for corruption and financial mismanagement.
At least seven former managing directors of the airline who helped plunge it
into a serious financial quagmire were indicted, while four were recommended
for prosecution, according to the report.
Ten of those indicted were banned from holding public office for 10 years
while one was banned for life.
Nigeria Airways, crippled by corruption and huge foreign and local debts, is
on the verge of liquidation.
The government is set next month to launch a new privately operated national
airline, the Nigerian Eagle Airlines Limited.
The once flourishing Nigeria Airways, which had more than 30 planes in its
fleet in 1979 when Obasanjo, then a military head of state, ceded power, had
only one aircraft to its name when he returned as elected president 20 years
later.
A five-member panel including the ministers of finance, justice and aviation
has been appointed to implement the probe report's recommendations.
The government also directed the police and justice ministry to swing into
immediate action to enforce the recommendations, including recovery of the
looted or mismanaged money.
Among the lapses uncovered by the probe were over-invoicing, questionable
payments, and faulty and unilateral executive decisions, including the sale
of Nigeria Airways House in London for half of its street value.
In another example, a former managing director had the airline's engineers
carry out a maintenance check on a Boeing 737 in Nigeria while paying 3.5
million dollars to a Brazilian company for the work, the report said.
The airline was also accused of making payments for planes which were never
delivered and issuing free tickets to cronies.
The looted funds, when recovered, are expected to be ploughed back into the
new airline, as well as decaying social infrastructure such as health,
education, roads and electric power.
- AFP
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