A whooping fraud of N2.5billion was yesterday uncovered by the Senate in the activities of the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE) aimed at reconstructing and rehabilitating   communities destroyed by Boko Haram insurgency.

The discovery of the alleged fraud came at a time, women in most of the Internally Displaced Camps (IDPs), are begging for provision of sanitary pads.

The alleged fraud was let out of the bag during Public Hearing Session, the   Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North East had with relevant stakeholders from states in the North East and federal government agencies saddled with responsibilities of jump starting development in the area.

The fraud based on submissions and counter submissions made at the session, ranges from award and execution of non-existing contracts, overinflated contracts to outright misappropriation of funds.

Specifically, the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE) couldn’t account for the N2.5 billion it received for execution of intervention projects in the area when put on the spot by the committee.

While the Secretary of PINE, Umar Musa Gulani , claimed that the agency spent a whooping sum of N203million to clear taipa grass in Yobe State, stake holders from the state led by the state commissioner for Information, Alhaji Mohammed Lamin, disputed his claim as Lamin said ‘no taipa grass was cleared in the state by any federal government agency .”