SAN FRANCISCO, February 02, (THEWILL) – The Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has declared that the presiding officers of the National Assembly did not receive any rent from the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).
Chairman of the committee, Senator Dino Melaye, made this known at a media briefing in Abuja saying that the clarification of the “erroneous impression” that the National Assembly leadership collected over N600 million rent from the FCDA became imperative following a “false report by an online medium to that effect.”
The report had claimed that that the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and their deputies were using the FCDA to collect some amount of money as rent for their accommodation.
“Our attention has been drawn to a story in an online medium, where a sponsored group called Citizen Action to Take Back Nigeria (CATBAN). Obviously, one of this briefcase Civil Society Group that are not registered even by law in the Federal Republic of Nigeria and hurriedly packaged to do assassin jobs on the social media,” Melaye said.
“This fake briefcase NGO called CATBAN claimed that the president of the Senate, the speaker and their deputies are using Federal Capital Development Authority to collect some amount of money as rent for their accommodation.
“We want to state clearly that the four presiding officers of the National Assembly do not collect any money for rent, furniture and renovation from the FCDA or any federal government agency for that matter.
“I as the chairman of the Senate committee on FCT, I put my integrity on test to say that no kobo was collected by any of the presiding officers from the FCDA and those who know how government bureaucracy works know it is practically impossible for any of the presiding officers to collect money directly from the FCDA.
“It should be noted that while senators Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu as well as Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara and Lasun Yusuff are entitled to well-furnished official accommodation by virtue of their positions just like the President, the Vice President and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, they all live in their private residences.
“They even insisted last year if you recall that the president of the Nigerian Senate insisted last year that the N10 billion which the FCDA put in the 2016 budget for the completion of the official residencies of the Senate President and speaker be removed from the budget to save cost in reflection of the mood of the nation and that money was removed from the budget because Nigeria is in recession, they sacrificed their own personal comfort for the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“It should be noted that this same group CATBAN on January 3rd, 2017 held a press conference where it cleared Mr Babachir Lawal, SGF who had been indicted by the senate for corruption in the award of contracts and utilisation of funds meant for the northeast humanitarian crisis.
“Therefore, the same NGO that held a press conference and their name came into limelight for the first time on the 3rd of January is the same NGO now that is speaking trying effortlessly to indict the leadership of the National Assembly, therefore, we know where this is coming from.
“We advise the sponsors of the group who are holding on to straw as they are drowning in the six pole of their corrupt practices to always check their information very well as they got it wrong this time.
“I also want to use this opportunity to call on fake NGOs like this who propagate falsehood and lies all over the social media to advise themselves and do the right thing and I do expect that intelligence group before coming to the public will carry out even if they are been fed with lies.
“I expect them to process this lies and check the veracity or otherwise of it before jumping into conclusion. I challenge this group to provide evidence in terms of transfers or how in any manner any presiding officers have benefited financially from the FCDA.
“I say it is a lie, it is not true, it is malicious, it is fallacious, it’s baseless and totally untrue.”
Melaye further revealed that the Senate would demand the review of the contract for the building of the residences of the Senate President and Mr Speaker declaring that the review of the contract sum of the building became necessary due to the discovery of “skyrocketed and over inflated contract prices.”
Melaye said that his committee went on oversight to the buildings and discovered that the contract was inflated.
“As I speak to you, the mosque that is occupying less than 100 square meters that are meant to be the prayer place for the Senate President and deputy senate president’s residence and even the Vice President’s residence was awarded for over N200million. And it is a three bedroom boys quarters less structure,” he stated.
“The gatehouse of the Vice President’s residence was also awarded at over N250million. We are going to call for a review of that contract and Julius Berger said they are going to build a concrete building.
“I went there with a hammer and I hit the wall and I saw block. So, that investigation is ongoing. And we want to make sure that government is not being raped and short-changed. So we are definitely going to call for a review of the contract because this is a rape of the taxpayers’ money.”
