Oby Ezekwesili Don't Know What She Is Saying ––Says Reps

The House of Representatives have reacted to Oby Ezekwesili's "bogus" claims of their finances:

"If we are truly talking about cutting cost of governance, it has to be across the three arms. If that is the case, how do you explain a fleet of 10 aircraft in the presidential fleet and how do you maintain them? 

“Again, how do you defend N2b spent on air tickets by a minister, and that is just one Minister, what about the rest despite the fact that there is a presidential fleet. Why do we need up to 40 Ministers in the first place?

“The legislature and the judiciary have principal officers too and they have to travel as well; how many aircraft are they maintaining?”

The House described the comments of former Minister,Oby Ezekwesili as a “simplistic and escapist way of addressing a problem”.

Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Victor Ogene, speaking with The Nation on Tuesday, regretted that the former Minister could not come up with simple calculation of what accrued to the National Assembly and the lawmakers in particular in the period under review.

Ogene said a National Assembly comprising 109 Senators, 360 Representatives and the bureaucracy, which include the National Assembly Commission, began to draw its N150b annual budget from the first line charge in 2010.

According to him, the N150b was meant for legislators’ allowances, their aides, the civil servants, capital projects and allied institutions under the National Assembly, such as the Institute for Legislative Studies.

“Going by the fact that the entire National Assembly began to get N150b in 2010, it means that before then we could not have got up to that amount.

“To now come up with a calculation that the lawmakers alone got over N1 trillion during the period, I think that person is jaundiced. What is the percentage of N150b in a budget of N4.9 trillion? she should tell Nigerians”.

“It would, however, suffice for Ezekwesili to tell us what recurrent expenditure was during her tenure and what it cost Nigerian taxpayers to maintain her and her aides for a year,” Hon Ogene stressed.