House of Representatives and a member of the House
Committee on Aviation. In this chat, he speaks on how the
committee will ensure that all necessary avenues are
explored to deliver justice to Nigerians on reckless
spending in government.
The Minister of Aviation is said to have gone abroad
despite the N255m cars scandal involving her. Do you
think her action is appropriate?
That is another serious act of impunity on the part of the
minister. It is also a clear case of not taking the parliament
seriously, it is rather unfortunate. All she ought to have
done is to delegate her Permanent Secretary or a Director
in her ministry to carry out the rituals of signing the
BASA agreement and face squarely what is on ground for
her. The heavens will not fall if another person signs on
behalf of Nigeria. We will not stop until we get to the
bottom of why such a huge sum of money was spent for
vehicles.
What exactly did the National Assembly approve for the
NCAA?
Take a peep at page six of their budget, we approved 5
Toyota Pickup Hilux, 16 Toyota Corolla, 5 Toyota
Landcruiser Jeeps, 3 Toyota Hiace buses all at a cost of
N240 million but they eventually bought 54 vehicles
through the bank lease for the sum of N643 million which
was financed by the bank. There was no time we discussed
the issue of a lease with them during the budget defence. I
do not want to preclude this investigative hearing but we
will dis-passionately seek justice for all Nigerians through
this investigation. Never again in the history of Nigeria
will public servants take Nigerians for a ride.
But, from all indications, it appears as if the minister may
not meet your deadline for the hearing as you are expected
to close shop on Tuesday?
If she fails to show up we will issue a bench warrant to get
her arrested.
Arrest! Has it come to that?
This is a national issue that must be properly thrashed out
with the zeal of a wounded lion. If need be, we will ask
the Speaker to issue a bench warrant immediately she fails
to show up and she will be arrested. We've given her
enough grace as the committee will sit on Friday, Monday
and Tuesday. All those excuses given on her behalf will
not hold by the time we conclude our findings.
You mentioned that NCAA officials used two budgets.
What do you mean?
Yes! They are using both the approved budget and the
unapproved one. In the approved one, we clearly deleted
the purchase of armoured cars and, in the approved
budget, armoured cars were not captured. This is a clear
case of ineptitude and negligence of duty which can never
be accepted by Nigerians that we represent here in the
National Assembly.
But why would….?
The simple instruction we gave is that they should delete
the armoured cars. We argued then that they do not need
such cars to inspect perimeter fence. It is embarrassing to
us and the entire country.
Via: Vanguard
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