The Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory rejected
requests for an extra N9billion by the Federal Capital Territory
Administration to complete the residence of the Vice-President.
The committee, after making a visit, failed to be convinced by the FCTA that a further N9bn be sunk into the project.
The Committee Chairman, Senator Smart Adeyemi, leading members of his
committee around the site, said such an amount could not be justified
in the face of abject poverty in the land.
The Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority,
Adamu Ismail, informed the committee that the project was awarded at
the initial cost of N7bn in 2007.
He said that the extra funds were required to provide furniture,
fencing, two protocol guest houses, a banquet hall and security gadgets.
These, he said, were not part of the original plans of the building, of which Julius Berger Nigeria Plc is the contractor.
“We have worked out the details, and passed it to the Bureau of
Public Procurement for consideration. They’ve sent it back to us with
their observations,” he said.
“We requested for N9bn, but it has come down to about N6bn.”
Nonetheless, Smart said, “The National Assembly is not going to
appropriate N9bn for this project, especially at this period where some
people can’t even get a square meal.”
“The N9bn is even more than the original cost of the building.
Fourteen billion naira to me is huge for the Vice-President’s house. If
it was N10bn, it would have been understandable.”
“The reality is that N14bn is indefensible and that is our
submission. In Nigeria, there are still many people with empty stomachs.
We have to do budgetting with that in regards.”
On the other hand, the Vice-Chairman of the Committee, Senator
Domingo Obende, implored the officials to submit the details of the
scope of the additional work for which the additional funds are sought
to the committee for proper scrutiny.
The Vice-President’s house has a N2 billion allocation in the 2013 budget for the FCT.
Source: Herald Ng.
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