Governor Abubakar Sani-Bello of Niger has reshuffled his cabinet.

The governor, in a statement issued on Wednesday in Minna by his Chief Press Secretary, Mary Noel-Berje, directed the Commissioner for Works, Ibrahim Panti, to hand over to the Commissioner for Planning, Mamman Musa, with immediate effect.

He also directed the Commissioner of Finance, Zakari Abubakar, to oversee the Ministry of Planning and the finance ministry.

The statement was silent on what becomes of Mr Panti.

However, the News Agency of Nigeria learned that the former commissioner was dropped from the cabinet. 

Last December, the state’s House of Assembly had accused the ministry of works of gross misconduct for incurring expenditure above its 2020 appropriation.

Malik Bosso, the vice chairman of the parliament’s committee on works, made the allegation while speaking to journalists shortly after meeting with officials of the ministry at the 2021 budget defence at the House of Assembly Complex in Minna.

Mr Bosso explained that the assembly approved about N8 billion for the ministry’s capital projects in the 2020 budget, including the revised budget of the ministry, but it spent about N10 billion.

He noted, “The Constitution said that all revenue of the state must be budgeted for, before any expenditure, this means that any money that is not budgeted for or approved by the house cannot be spent, no MDA is allowed to make any expenditure above what was budgeted.”