PAP Blasts Mischief Makers Over N187m Consultancy Service, Stationery Supply Claims …Says Transactions Not Within Dikio’s Regime

The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) has said that the Senate inquiry into the payment of alleged N187million contract and supplies of stationaries were done by past administrations before the present administration of the presidential Amnesty Programme led by Col Milland Dixon Dikio.
The agency has, therefore, berated some mischief makers following their claims on Senate inquiries into some transactions that occurred in the amnesty office before Dikio, was appointed the Interim Administrator of the scheme, and insisted that reports suggesting that the transactions were done within Dikio’s tenure were the latest work of mischief makers, desperately seeking to discredit the interim administrator.
It said it was inconceivable for the reports to give the impression that the Senate summoned Dikio for allegedly paying N187million for supply of stationery and consultancy fee for end of year meeting and vocational training.
In a press statement, yesterday, signed by the Special Adviser to Dikio on Media, Mr. Neotabase Egbe, said that the incident occurred in 2017, and the circular for the query succinctly captured the date and other details.
He said if the reporters were not acting the scripts of their paymasters they would have launched an investigation to fulfill the time tested and age-long journalistic ethics of factual reporting.
Egbe stressed that the notice of the query which had 2017 payment voucher would have ordinarily made them avoid the gross misrepresentation of the issue.
According to him, the amnesty office had no time received series of invitations from the senate as claimed by the reports, adding that
Dikio has high regard for institutions of government saddled with the responsibility of carrying out its statutory function.
“The report widely circulated in some national dailies does not represent the true situation of things. The said incident for the supply of stationery and consultancy services for end of year happened way back in 2017.
“It was, therefore, surprising that for obvious monetary gains, mischief and deliberate action to discredit the Interim Administrator, the authors of the story couldn’t verify from the office.
“Even the nomenclature of the office from the circular shows that the occupant of the office was still referred to as Special Adviser, whereas since the coming of Dikio, it has been rightly changed as administrator”, he said.
He called on journalists to always cross check with the amnesty office to avoid such embarrassing reports, maintaining that Dikio’s mantra of probity and accountability remained changed.

By: Akujobi Amadi