The House of Representatives committee on works will summon the minister of works, Babatunde Raji Fashola and other officials of the ministry over alleged plan to fund ongoing roads projects with the $308 million recovered Abacha loot.
The summons was part of an investigation following the resolution of the House last week on a motion moved by Chudi Momah (APGA, Anambra) on the need to investigate the ongoing Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kadina-Zaria-Kano Expressways and the Second Niger Bridge projects.
The committee, headed by Engineer Abubakar Kabir Abubakar (APC,Kano), extended its investigation to the utilisation of the Abacha loot after an earlier allegation of inflation on the ongoing contracts.
A source in the committee told Daily Trust, “We have received the mandate to investigate the matter. We are summoning the minister, Berger and other stakeholders. We will send the letters on Monday and give them a date to appear before the committee.
” Apart from the concern on the slow pace of the ongoing projects and other issues, it is absurd to inject the recovered $308 million into the projects which already has source of funds set aside for their execution”.
The committee had over two months ago summoned the officials of Julius Berger Nigeria Plc to express their displeasure over the scope of work done compared to the funds released to the company.
It could be recalled that, the spokesperson, The funds, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ferdinand Nwonye, was quoted saying that, the $308 million will be used to fund, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Abuja – Kano Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge and will be supervised by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).
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