The investigation into the 2016 initiated by the Department of State Security (DSS) started in earnest on Monday morning as Yussuff Lasun, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives appeared before the DSS operatives.
The security agency’s invitation to the Deputy Speaker was sequel to the petition written by Abdulmumin Jibrin, ousted chairman, House Committee on Appropriations over series of fraudulent insertion of overheads in the 2016 budget.
Lasun who arrived Abuja on Sunday evening to honour the invitation, declined to go with his security convoy to the DSS headquarters early on Monday, to wade undue suspicion of his destination, BusinessDay investigation revealed.
According to the project allocated to his federal constituency in the controversial projects in the 2016 Appropriations assented to by Mr. President, the N500 million for the rehabilitation of existing borehole project domiciled with Ogun/Osun River Basin Development
Authority (under Federal Ministry of Water Resources), among others are to be scrutinized by the security and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a security source told our Correspondent.
From the total sum of N2.5 billion allocated the 26 zonal constituency projects proposed by the Speaker in the 2016 Appropriation Act, five educational related projects worth N1 billion are domiciled with Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and Refugees (under SGF office).
Another project for training and empowerment for youth and women strategic Irepodun/Olorunda/Orolu/Osogbo worth N250 million was domiciled with National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) while additional sum of N250 million was for Training empowerment for youth on ICT domiciled with Communication Technology.
Meanwhile, additional 20 training and empowerment for women and youths worth N50 million each are domiciled with Border Communities (under SGF office); Stored Product, Lagos under Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
“The situation is getting out of hand than we thought presently but I won’t be able to speak more than that for now,” one of the Aides
attached to the Deputy Speaker said in a chat.
Since the scandal started, the Deputy Speaker and his Aides have restrained from reacting or making public comment or react to various allegations leveled against the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Ado Doguwa,Chief Whip and Leo Ogor, Minority Whip.
According to one of the lawmakers familiar with the budget preparation, who dismissed the arguments of some of the pro-Dogara’s
team who spoke with our Correspondent, however noted that the constituency subheads is different from the zonal intervention
projects contrary to popular information being reeled out to the general public.
He explained “all the constituency projects where most of the allegations of budget padding were, have subsumed in the projects to
be executed in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, hence there is no way anyone can really estimate the actual value of the
fictitious we are dealing with.”
To effectively unearth the mystery behind the scandal, it would be appropriate for a special committee to be set up to identify those
constituency projects per MDA, adding that the Permanent Secretaries of all the MDAs must be put to task to nip the issue in the bud once and for all.
