By Henry Umoru

THE Senate has taken a swipe at the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, for allegedly raising alarm over alleged insertion of projects outside the purview of his ministry in the 2017 Appropriation Act by the National Assembly, asking him to stop spreading half truths and wrong information.

The Senate told Fashola that before the final approval of the 2017 Appropriation Bill, the National Assembly had worked to ensure equity across the country on all new and outstanding projects.

In a statement, yesterday, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, said the National Assembly acted in national interest to ensure equity and fairness in the distribution of projects as well as ensured that all sections of the country had representation in the national budget as guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution.

Babatunde Fashola

The Senate spokesperson noted that Fashola did not give members of the public the details about the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which has been on a private finance initiative from the beginning “because he would prefer an arrangement that allows the ministry to continue to award contracts and fund the project through government budgetary allocation at a time when the nation’s revenue is dwindling and at an all time low”.

Abdullahi stated that the Bureau of Public Procurement and the Federal Executive Council, in 2013, approved the reconstruction, rehabilitation and expansion of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway as a public private partnership project using the private finance initiative, with the Federal Government providing about 30 percent of the funding while the balance shall be provided by the private sector.

The project, he stated, was on course for completion by end of 2017 when the private finance initiative was being implemented, with over 30 percent completion rate attained as at early 2015.

The Senator alleged that, in blatant disregard for existing agreements, constituted authorities and extant laws, Fashola, on assumption of office, got government, through the Ministry, to start voting money for the implementation of the project, saying, “Even as at last year the 2016 Appropriation Act voted N40 billion for the project on the insistence of the Ministry and only N26 billion was released. If we had known, the rest N14 billion could have been allocated to other critical roads across the country”.