BY GODWIN ORITSE
THE House of Representa-tives Ad-hoc Committee investigating Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA’s Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, CVFF, has ordered the redeployment of the Acting Finance Director, Mr. Victor Onuzulike.

A member of the Committee, Dr. Adejare Babatunde, said he was not satisfied with the answers Onuzulike gave in response to some of their questions during a public hearing of the CVFF.

In the course of interrogation, it was observed that Mr. Onuzulike was reluctant to throw more light on  questions asked by members of the committee who were angered by the misappropriation of the CVFF.

At a point, the committee discovered that monies were moved from the CVFF accounts to other accounts without any memo.

It was also discovered that a number of revenue consultants, including Global West Specialist Vessels Limited, were being paid from the CVFF, thereby defeating the purpose for which it was established.

Adejare pointed out that the bank statement made available to the committee was not a true reflection of what Onuzulike claimed.

The only answer Onuzulike could give to some of the questions put to him by members of the committee was that monies were being moved from one account to another with a view to growing the fund.

Onuzulike said: “The monies you have seen, that have been distributed to the Primary Lending Institutions, PLIs, were also fixed.

“You have the principal and accumulated interest. That is what has been disbursed to the PLIs.

“I can mention here that we have given all the bank statements from inception to date.

“You will notice that in those statements, it is from all the funds that have been fixed with accumulated interest up to the date, that we now give apportionment to the PLIs.

“The funds that are with the PLIs are also on interest. They pay interest on that but, specifically, the present administration went a step further to seek more avenues to grow the fund and that is why we entered into special arrangements to grow this fund.”

During the investigation, chairman of the Committee Mr. Christopher Eta, noted that the exchange rate used to carry out conversion of the monies in some of the transaction were also at variance with current rates.