A lawmaker in the state house of assembly has exonerated the Mimiko regime from the N4.3bn stashed in a secret bank account with a commercial bank in Ondo state.
The Precision NG had reported that the secret account might have been opened during the Mimiko administration.
No official statement from the former governor on the issue.
But speaking with The Precision NG in a telephone chat, a lawmaker who would prefer anonymity said investigation is ongoing.
“As far as I know, it is not the Mimiko administration that opened the account.
“If the account was found out 10 years ago in 2018, you too can do the calculation yourself to know the administration that opened the account”, he said.
He said the house of assembly was not responsible for unearthing the secret account but the Auditor General report of 2018 that captured it.
“It is just a committee in the house that is doing its oversight function to ensure accountability.
“The facts that is emerging now is that the money was return back into the state account, it was budgeted for and it was spent. It is in the budget of 2018.
“Because this is an election year, people want to heat up the polity”, he said.
According to the lawmaker, investigation is ongoing and the house would be interested in the year the account was opened and other important details about the secret account.
READ ALSO: Alagbakagate: Akeredolu’s Son Claims He Found The N4.3bn, Queries Ondo Assembly’s Probe
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Niger Delta, Chief Tayo Alasoadura, who served as Commissioner for Finance in the Agagu administration, said all bank accounts operated by the administration were in the name of Ondo State Government and all were on record.
According to him, the inability of the administration to properly hand over to the Olusegun Mimiko administration in 2009, due to the Court of Appeal judgement that sacked Agagu as governor, may have contributed to the error in documentation.
Alasoadura, who spoke in a telephone chat with TRACE Magazine, blamed the bank for not calling the attention of the new administration to such account since the government operated accounts in all banks operating in the state, as a policy.
The minister recalled setting the record straight in 2009 to say that the Agagu administration left over N30billion in the treasury of the government as against a debt of N170billion being claimed by Mimiko at the time.
The funds left by the Agagu administration for the Mimiko administration, Alasoadura added, included N2.9billion funds belonging to the local governments in the state.
The Minister, however, commended the Akeredolu administration for discovering the account and the money but added that the House of Assembly has done the right thing by asking questions, especially on the interest that has accrued on the funds in the account since the bank must have been using the money to trade.
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