By Emma Amaize, Warri

FORMER Minister of State for Education, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, Friday, told the Visitation Panel to the Federal University of Petroleum Resources , FUPRE, Ugbomron, Effurun, Delta State how a top official of the school (name withheld) collected $50,000  as bribe in his presence  from a company, Skygrade  to execute a project in the institution.

Pointing out that the official had to vomit the $50,000 when he backstabbed the company by  recommending another company, Jazbell Nigeria Limited, which he (official) and others, have  interest in for the contract, he said the problem with FUPRE was corruption and incompetence.

He told the panel that evidence of the official receiving the $50,000 dollars and returning same, as well as other annexures would be supplied to it in the next few days. Gbagi, who shocked the Prof Olurotimi –led panel with his exposure, said the top official offered him N2 million bribe when he visited the university offically as Minister of State for Education, last year, but he turned it down and warned him not to try such thing in future.

He said the institution was infested with corruption, adding that a senior official of the National Universities  Commission, NUC, and two top officials of the company, own a company known as Jazbell with which they have been defrauding the insitution.

Olorogun Gbagi said whilst the panel was sitting, the trio tried to change the names of the directors of the company, but unknown to them, as a businessman, he had obtained the names of the directors eight months ago.

He said that major projects in the institution were usually awarded to the company owned by the trio and payments fasttracked, while other companies must pay bribe, without which they would not be paid.

He mentioned a case of a company, which had completed two stages of a building project in the scholl under and ETF-sponsore project, but the operating cabal in the school refused to pay money for job already done except bribe was offered.

Gbagi said the fact that the degree programmes of the institution have not been accredited appear not to bother the officials, who are in the top echelon of the univeristy, and accused an NUC member of the cabal of misinforming the President and Minister of Education on the recent dissolution of the governing board of FUPRE  and other federal universities, as if they were companies.