Not many people would believe that the incumbent Speaker of the House of Representatives,Aminu Tambuwal is still homeless 6 months after he assumed office as Speaker.His palatial official quarters located in the A wing of the Apo National Assembly Quarters was allegedly sold to his predecessor in office,Dimeji Bankole as a parting gift from the Presidency.
Sources gathered that the official residences of the ex-Speaker as well as that of the Senate President were sold to the 2 of them at give-away prices as part of government monetization policy despite the fact that such buildings did not come under the programme.
Eyebrows were said to have been raised by those who knew the implication of the sales but the government still went ahead with it.The controversy however became more obvious a few months ago when a member of the Speaker alleging that the House leadership wanted to pay hundreds of million of naira to rent the same apartment which was sold to the former Speaker at about 100 million naira.
The House members were allegedly furious not with the illegality of selling the house but also the fact that their former leader was trying to give out the house to his successor for such a huge amout.Already,the project of building another new official residence for the Speaker is captured in the new budget for the Federal Capital Territory Authority,(FCTA) the body responsible for the building of such structures..
Meanwhile,the new Speaker,Aminu Tambuwal still sleeps in his old apartment which has been renovated.
We gathered that it is not only in the issue of accommodation that the incumbent Speaker has had to forgo his comfort,without making noise.
According to reports,he is using the cars used by former Speaker,Patricia Etteh early in her tenure as Speaker in 2007.It was reliably gathered that the immediate past Speaker,like all his colleagues went away with his official cars as they are also sold to him at cheap amount.
Tambuwal is said to have decided that given the furore that the purchase of cars had generated in the past,it would be out of place for him to buy one now.Based on this,he alleged told the National Assembly leadership that he would patiently wait for the cars for the various committees of the House to be purchased with his own.
0 comments:
Post a Comment