Budget Padding: Ministry Officials Grilled, Dogara and Others to be Invited

An anti-graft agency has finally began moves to look into the budget padding crisis rocking the House of Representatives in which Speaker Dogara and other principal officers have been heavily indicted.

Yakubu Dogara and Abdulmumin Jibrin

 

Reports from Punch have it that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is secretly investigating the budget padding saga involving the House of Representatives.

 

The EFCC has reportedly being following the grevious allegations made by by the former Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, against the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, and other principal officials of the House.

 

It would be recalled that the whistleblowing saga led to the suspension of Jibrin for 180 days from the green chamber. A top operative of the anti-corruption body on Tuesday, confided in a correspondent about the reports of the investigation.

The source said the commission had grilled officials of 16 federal ministries in connection with the probe into the allegations contained in the petition written to the commission by Jibrin, who was suspended by the House in September. Dogara and other indicted lawmakers could be invited for interrogation very soon as EFCC operatives begin to record progress.

It was further stated that operatives of the commission had gathered some evidence on some of the issues raised in the petition. It was gathered that the commission would soon send invitation letters to some of the members listed in the petition to the commission.

Abdulmumin had accused the Speaker, Dogara, and other principal officers of the House of padding the 2016 budget to the tune of N40bn as constituency project.

He had alleged in the petition that the N40bn projects were shared among the Speaker, his Deputy, Yussuff Lasun; the Whip of the House, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa; and the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor.

He also alleged that Dogara ignored his complaint that the chairmen of 10 out of the 96 standing committees inserted 2,000 projects worth about N284bn into the budget among others.

He had claimed also that his refusal to accept a requested insertion of N30bn into the 2016 budget caused the rift between him and the leadership of the house.