The Rivers State House of Assembly has issued a warrant of arrest for the vice chancellor of PAMO University of Medical Sciences and ordered the recovery of approximately N24 billion in scholarship funds disbursed to the university.
This followed the failure of the vice chancellor to appear before the Assembly’s ad hoc committee investigating the use of state funds disbursed to the institution since its establishment in 2017.
The resolution was reached on Friday during the Assembly’s 53rd legislative sitting and followed consideration of the ad hoc committee’s report presented by Dumle Maol, committee chairman.
The committee report cited the failure of PAMO University’s vice chancellor to appear before it despite several invitations to explain how money given to the university under the scholarship scheme was expended.
It also chronicled how the university received over N29 billion from the state government with no corresponding student enrolment, giving credence to the reason behind the vice chancellor’s refusal to honour the invitations.
Martin Chike Amaewhule, Speaker of the Assembly, said that though the intentions of the government in entering into the scholarship scheme agreement were good, the implementation was a cog in the plan.
He frowned at the situation where documents presented by the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education and the Office of the Accountant-General were at variance, adding that, by simple deduction, out of the over N29 billion released by the state government to PAMO University, it utilised only N5 billion.
Amaewhule harped on the determination of the assembly under his leadership to do the right thing irrespective of whose ox is gored, stressing that no individual can be bigger than the House as an institution empowered by the Constitution.
The House, among other recommendations, also urged the state government to set up a committee to recover all unaccounted funds in possession of PAMO University and deposit them in the state’s Consolidated Revenue Account.