POWER SHOW: Reps get ego massaged, caution Fashola

7 hours ago

Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has apologised to the National Assembly over how his 2017 budget comments were received, explaining that his comments were not intended to disrespect the legislature or question its powers.

Fashola had been quoted as pointing to the lawmakers’ “stark and worrisome knowledge of the budget process”, following the National Assembly’s cutting of the N31 billion proposed for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to N10 billion in the 2017 budget.

The minister also accused the lawmakers of reducing budget meant for the Second Niger Bridge from N15 billion to N10 billion.

Not happy with the comments, members of the National Assembly had exchanged critical comments with Fashola in a heated back-and-forth.

The House of Representatives had subsequently summoned Fashola to come and explain what he meant by his comments.

But in his response to the house in Abuja on Friday, Fashola said, “If my statements caused any discontentment; that was not my intention. I certainly apologise for it (sic).”

Fashola made these comments to the Ad-hoc Committee on Violation of the Appropriation Act chaired by Aliyu Madaki, a member from Kano State.

He clarified that his comments were not directed at the entire National Assembly, but rather,were specific replies to statements made by the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas.

According to him, Namdas had told the public that N6 billion was released for the Second Niger Bridge in 2016, but that the money was returned.

Fashola explained that Namdas was expected to understand that there was a difference between appropriation and actual release of funds.

He said, “The spokesman (Namdas) said money was released in 2016 but that it was refunded because no kobo was spent.

“The truth is that no money was released to us. We didn’t get money for the project. I had to respond to him because people were calling me to ask why we returned the money.”

He added that, “I can’t claim to know everything and if errors are pointed out to me, I will be the first to publicly apologise but my response was to the effect that we return money which we never got and it was directed to the person that raised the question specifically.

“I did not deny the powers of the parliament over the budget but the point I am making is, after budget defense where we had explained all these plans, we felt that if there was going to be changes to the budget proposal after defense, we felt they will call us back to say there are the changes or problems with it.”

Responding, Madaki advised Fashola to exercise extreme caution in making future comments, considering the impact of his words given his position in the country.