DTHA BEGINS INVESTIGATION OF SALE OF SERVICEABLE DLA EQUIPMENT

The Delta State House of Assembly Committee on Works is probing an alleged illegal sale of serviceable heavy duty construction equipment at the state owned Direct Labour Agency, DLA.

The Committee members had discovered during the 2020 budget defense session with the management of the agency that some of its serviceable equipment acquired for road construction and maintenance in the state were illegally auctioned by the last board of the agency.

The Chairman of the Committee, Honourable Emeke Nwaobi, while addressing stakeholders at the meeting held at the State House of Assembly premises in Asaba, reiterated the commitment of the House to ensuring that the state recovered all illegally sold properties.

The Lawmaker said there had been public outcry on the auctioning of the DLA equipment by the last board, stressing that the process of the transaction was not only faulty, most of the auctioned equipment were serviceable and still very useful and needed in the agency’s operations.

Honourable Nwaobi, flanked by three other members, including Honourables Emmanuel Sinebe, Mathew Opuoru and Solomon Ighrakpata, disclosed that his Committee had already established that general auctioning of state government’s properties should not involve DLA as the law that set it up retained ownership of all equipment and other properties to the agency.

He expressed concern that the immediate past Director General of the agency, under whose administration the auctioning was carried out was not present which made it difficult to resolve some of the issues.

The Lawmaker therefore adjourned the next meeting of the committee to January, and directed the auctioneer and DLA board to submit copies of requested relevant documents to the secretariat of the committee on or before Friday this week.

He stressed that the Committee would recover the illegally auctioned equipmentband solicited the cooperation of all relevant stakeholders.

The Director General of the Agency, Mr Precious Ajaino who led other board members of the board of the agency to the committee sitting, had expressed the readiness of the present board to recover the equipment as they were very useful to the operations of the agency.