By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA—Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has denied allegations that he and the Minister of State, Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, were involved in a N2 billion bribery scam.

Ogbeh, who was reacting to an online medium’s report, said at a media briefing, yesterday, that nobody in his ministry collected a kobo from the contractors who were paid their money.

The Minister said it was the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance to pay agro-dealers and not the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

It will be recalled that under the Jonathan’s administration, agro-dealers were owed when the Growth Enhancement Support, GES, scheme was operational, which in turn led to a review of the scheme by the current administration in order to ascertain the real debt owed and cut cost.

Ogbeh said: “We read on the social media that there have   been a bribery scandal in this ministry, and that in paying the agro-dealers we paid out N13 billion and the Minister of State and I shared N2 billion.

“First, this was a debt which we inherited from the previous administration, the total debt was N37 billion and when we arrived, the agro-dealers said they couldn’t operate because they didn’t have enough money to carry out their business.”