Gbajabiamila Knocks ICPC Over Reports On Constituency Projects
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila on Wednesday took a dig at the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) over its reports on monies released for constituency projects in the last 10 years.
Recall that a comment was recently credited to President Muhammadu Buhari that 1 trillion naira was made available for constituency projects in the past 10 years without meaningful impact on the lives and welfare of ordinary citizens.
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This was as the ICPC gave insight into how politicians use empowerment and capacity building projects to steal public funds.
Gbajabiamila during Wednesday’s plenary said his concern lies with the unintended consequences of the report of the commission (ICPC).
He said there is Freedom of Information Act which the anti-graft could have used to conduct proper investigation in order to find out the actual releases before giving its report.
According to him: “you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know the difference between monies budgeted & monies released.”
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Earlier, a point of order was raised by the Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu based on order 6 rule 1,2,3 & 4 on matters of privileges.
Elumelu said the National Assembly does not award contracts and such has nothing to do with execution of such.
Also contributing, deputy minority leader, Toby Okechukwu noted that it is misinformation to say it is 1 trillion naira released for constituency projects when the National Assembly’s constitutional role is to make laws and not execute projects.
He noted that the Executive arm, which awards contracts for constituency projects without full releases, shouldn’t expect to see meaningful impact.
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