4 MINISTERS, 78 OTHERS RISK ARREST OVER FAILURE TO SUBMIT CAPITAL PROJECTS ESTIMATE

Four Federal Ministers and 78 other chief executive officers of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) may face arrest by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over their failure to submit their 2009 capital projects estimate to the Commission.

The affected ministers are those in charge of Interior; Cooperation and Integration in Africa; Police Affairs and Youth Development.

The Chief Executive Officers of the MDAs who are yet to respond to the commission's directive include, Nigerian Prison Services; Nigerian Security printing and Minting Plc, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC); Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC); Court of Appeal; Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority; (NCAA) Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) and others.

The list of the defaulting MDAS also include federal universities, federal medical centers, research institutes and federal, teaching universities spread across the country.

Three separate memos were sent by the Commission last year to the defaulting MDAs but they all failed to respond to forward to the Commission documents relating to their capital projects for the 2009.

Already the commission had mandated the ad-hoc committee set up to verify the 2009 capital projects of MDAs to query the defaulting MDAs and to request them to appear before the Ad-hoc committee.

The Commission is also contemplating invoking sections 28, 29 and 34 of the ICPC Act 2000 to compel the defaulting MDAs to submit their 2009 capital projects record for verification to the anti-graft agency..