THE House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts said it was investigating how funds released to the Rivers State-owned tertiary institutions as well as other agencies and parastatals were spent from 2012 to date.

Chairman of the Committee and member representing Port Harcourt Constituency 2 in the House of Representatives, Chinyere Igwe, disclosed this during the committee’s two-day oversight in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Tuesday.

Igwe said the investigation of funds released to such institutions and parastatals were part of statutory functions conferred on the legislature by the Constitution.

“We have been delegated the authority to come to Rivers State to look at the situations; whether Rivers State truly have value for money for the projects that are cited in their communities or Rivers people truly benefitted from the programmes,” Igwe stated.

In his presentation, Chairman of the Rivers State Universal Basic Education Board, Fyneface Akah, said the board received over N11bn between 2011 and 2018.

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Akah further said, “The board on behalf of the State accessed a total of N11.9bn and those funds were for renovation and reconstruction of primary and junior secondary schools in Rivers State.

“The other parts of it; for special school education and then for training programme, teacher development programme of the board. These are funds that came directly, not part of counterpart fund.”

On his part, the focal person on National Social Investment Programme, Alwell Ihunda, said, “No money was released to Rivers State for the National Home Grown School Feeding programme.

“That is the one Federal Government calls the ‘take home ration for primary school pupils. None was released to Rivers State. Rivers State did not partake from it.”