Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, director-general, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), has said the N10bn appropriated for the Digital Switch Over (DSO) project was not in any personal account, but was being used for the purpose intended.
He was dispelling a speculation that Lai Mohammed, minister of Information and Culture, instructed him to write a memo to request that the fund be paid into a personal account.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Ilelah said the money released so far had been paid to contractors to execute the project.
“The N10bn has to do with money meant for contractors that were involved in the DSO project, half of the N10bn was paid to the contractors. The only contractor that has not been paid is SES Company because they requested that the money should be paid in dollars, but we’re getting the issue sorted out.”
“The money was supposed to be sent to NBC, but under the instruction of the minister, the money was sent to the ministry because at that time, there was no substantive DG. That was why it was sent to the ministry.”
On the allegations that the money was paid into a private account on the order of the minister, Ilelah emphasized: “No money was sent to a private account. I can’t imagine someone with the caliber of a minister to send government money to a private account.”
