The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, has alleged that minister of works, Babatunde Fashola, is angry because the legislative arm removed a N20billion contingencies cost from the 2017 budget.
According to a report by Punch, Namdas made this known while speaking with journalists in Abuja recently.
Namdas
said members of the National Assembly were surprised that the Fashola's
ministry would keep N20billion in the budget as “contingencies”, but
chose to propose only N12bn for the 2nd Niger Bridge.
“The
provision for contingencies was found only in Fashola’s ministry and
the fact that we removed that money is where the anger is. We sourced
another N30bn and added that N21bn, bringing it to N50bn, which was
distributed to 15 other roads in the country,” he said.
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Nigeria's Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN)
Namdas
also disagreed with Fashola that there was no existing Public Private
Partnership funding agreement for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Speaking furher, Namdas said, “So, even if he says there is no PPP, but there is something like a loan by a consortium of banks, what do you make of that?
“Since
he is not sure, we stand on our ground that there is a PPP in place and
that the National Assembly acted right by re-distributing the money to
the roads in the country, including South-West states.”
Continuing, Namdas said: " In
2016 the National Assembly appropriated N40bn for the road, out of
which only N26bn was successfully utilised. The other N14bn was not
released. It then means that even if we gave them the whole N31bn, there
is no guarantee that they will release it. The National Assembly acted
from a position of experience.”
Fashola
had earlier raised an alarm over the insertion of projects outside the
purview of his ministry in the 2017 Appropriation Act by the National
Assembly.
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