Lagos Assembly moves to nail Ambode for no approval on purchase of N45bn buses
More facts are beginning to emerge on why former Governor and national leader of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was missing during hurried commissioning of yet to be completed Oshodi Transport Interchange and set of new Chinese buses towards the last lap of former governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration in Lagos State.
Though many political pundits had taken his absence at the commissioning to mean a kind of response to President Muhammadu Buahri’s absence to his birthday Colloquium in Abuja weeks before, latest happenstances at the Lagos State House of Assembly, according to analysts apparently points to the fact that Tinubu’s absence means a lot after all.
Only recently, the Lagos State House Assembly inaugurated a committee to investigate the purchase of 820 buses by the administration of former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, insisting that procurement of 820 out of the 5,000 buses proposed by Ambode for mass transit was done despite the objections by the Assembly.
Firing the first shot in a motion titled: “Lagos State House of Assembly motion number 2”, Gbolahan Yishawu (Eti Osa 2), explained that Ambode informed lawmakers that 5,000 buses would be bought by the state government at the Executive/ Legislative parley held in FESTAC on September 2017.
According to him, Governor Ambode had proposed to spend N17 billion to purchase the buses in the 2017 budget, but the Assembly did not grant the approval.
He recalled further that “In the 2018 and 2019 budgets, the state government proposed N24 billion and N7 billion respectively, but these were not approved. The state government still went ahead to import 820 buses at N7 billion; and out of them, 520 are still awaiting clearance at the ports.
“The state government requested waivers for the importation of the buses and it was not granted. The value of the buses was overrated. Some of the buses are still in the ports and they are attracting demurrage.
“N45 billion would be spent on the total purchase of the buses and we need to prevent such an occurrence in the future,” Yishawu said.
Compounding Ambode’s trouble, the speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, said in his submission that the House needs to prevent waste as the expenditure has already been done.
He noted that “The vehicles are in the ports and they have been there for almost a year. The state will continue to suffer if we allow the buses to stay in the ports.
To fire up the build up in axing the former governor, Rasheed Makinde (Ifako-Ijaye II) said it was obvious that the last administration erred in awarding contracts.
He recalled that “The 8th Assembly rejected the proposal on the buses, yet they went on to spend N45 billion on the project.
“Since we did not approve the contract expenditure is null and void, so the money should be refunded.”
Having laid a strong background for the hangman, the speaker subsequently set up a committee headed by Mr Fatal Mojeed (Ibeju Lekki I) to look into the matter and report to the House in due course.
Accordingly, Obasa directed the committee to invite the Accountant General of the state, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and others that were involved to state their roles in the purchase.
He also told the committee to invite the current Commissioner for Finance, the Managing Director of LAMATA and others.
Efforts to reach the former governor for comments failed at press time.
Business Hilights recalls that since the rumoured decamping of the former governor to a yet to be known opposition party, he has been having running battles. Only last week, a controversy erupted in his country home over scuffles in searching his residence by an anti-graft agency of the Federal Government who were said to be chased out by youths of the area even though the agency did not make a clear statement on the matter.
