The PINE, which is charged with the reconstruction and rehabilitation of communities destroyed by Boko Haram insurgents, allegedly awarded and executed non-existing contracts, while over-inflating some of the contracts it executed in parts of the North-Eastern Nigeria.
The Senate committee said that PINE, during interrogation session, could not account for about N2.5 billion it received for the execution of intervention projects in the area.
In a bid to defend how the funds were spent, PINE’s secretary, Umar Musa Gulani, claimed that the agency spent about N203 million to clear grass in Yobe State.
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But the state Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Mohammed Lamin, while refuting the claim, said: “no taipa grass was cleared in the state by any Federal Government agency.”
This is coming at a time when women in most of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps lack basic commodities like sanitary pads, the report revealed.