The suspended Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mallam Mounir Gwarzo, was reported to have regretted his roles that enabled Medusa Limited, a company he and members of his wife’s family owned, to benefit from contract awards at the commission during his tenure.
Specifically, he was quoted by the Administrative Panel of Inquiry set up to investigate him over allegations of violations of public service Rules, Financial Regulations and other Extant Rules and Regulations that he regretted writing some letters to GTBank as a director of the company while still holding public office as SEC’s DG was regrettable.
The suspended DG’s confessions and others findings were contained in the full report of the Administrative Panel of Inquiry obtained at the weekend by some investigative journalists.
The panel was constituted to investigate Gwarzo on allegations that he collected severance package while still in office, served as director in Medusa Limited while in service in violation of PSR 030424 which prohibits public officers from holding office as director in private companies, used his position as DG of SEC to award contracts to Medusa wherein he was serving as director, thus resulting in conflict of interest, amongst others.
One of the issues used by the panel to indict him was that Gwarzo awarded SEC’s contracts to companies owned by him and his wife’s family in flagrant disobedience of public service rules while in service.
On his position as director in Medusa Limited while still serving as DG, the report stated that inquiry made and documents obtained by the panel at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) indicated that Gwarzo was still a director of the company as well as a major shareholder with a shareholding of N1.2m as at the time of the search.
The report indicated further that his purported letter of resignation dated 19th December 2012 was not part of CAC’s records as at the date of the inquiry. It was equally discovered from the account opening mandate obtained from GTBank that Gwarzo was at the date of the inquiry signatory to account No 322324264/1/110 maintained by the company with the bank.
