N1trn Constituency Project Funds: Gbajabiamila Disagrees With ICPC’s Report

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has disagreed with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission’s (ICPC) report which claims that N1trillion has so far been appropriated for National Assembly constituency projects with little or nothing to show for it.

Gbajabiamila said his concerns are the unintended consequences to the report of the ICPC, which brought out the information.

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He added that the anti-graft commission should have taken advantage of the Freedom Of Information (FoI) Act, to conduct proper investigation to find out the actual releases before giving its report.

“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know the difference between monies budgeted and monies released,” the Speaker said.

The Speaker’s reaction follows the point of order raised by the House Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu, based on order 6 rule 1, 2, 3 & 4 on matters of privileges.

He noted that a comment was credited to President Muhammadu Buhari that N1 trillion was made available for constituency projects in the past 10 years without meaningful impact.

He added that the National Assembly doesn’t award contracts and has nothing to do with the execution of such.

According to Elumelu, no more than half of the amount has been released to the National Assembly in the last 10 years.

The Deputy Minority Leader, Toby Okechukwu, also stated that it is misinformation to say it is N1trillion released for constituency projects when the National Assembly’s constitutional role is to make laws not execute projects.