Grandiose Parlor

How ministers, others shared N300m health fund - Director

Excerpt:

“I want to state that the decision to pay welfare package was a management decision involving the two ministers (Adenike Grange and Gabriel Aduku), the Permanent Secretary and the three service directors,” he said, adding that also involved were the three directors including himself, the Director of Finance and the Director of Personnel Services.

“It was only the details that were worked out without the input of the ministers.

“It is necessary to state that the sharing of the money with respect to who gets what was done in the Permanent Secretary’s office with the permanent secretary, myself and the other directors present,’’ he said.

He explained that “although Grange advised that her own share of N10 million be shared to junior staff, the money was never returned by her personal assistant until Thursday, February 28.

“The money was returned after I told the minister that the EFCC had directed that everybody should return what was paid to him or her,’’ he added.

Oyedepo further said in the statement that Aduku was more anxious to get his own part of the money.

“In the case of the Minister of State, he had in fact, been getting apprehensive that the money was not paid to him in time. He said that he had wanted to travel, but that we have been delaying him because of the non-payment of the money to him earlier than we did.

“That was why he was the one to be paid first; the minister (Grange) was paid the following week,’’ he said, adding that “He also never returned the money until February 28 when I demanded for it.

Dr Grange’s ordeal is a perfect example of how precarious the Nigerian bureaucracy has become. I’ve maintained that she isn’t the type that would soil her hands over some paltry 10 million Naira (~ $80,000). Her reputation is worth way more than that, and she can certainly make multiples of that simply by hawking her trade - pediatric medicine.