By Henry Umoru—ABUJA
THE Senate has taken a swipe at the Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, asking it to direct its grievances to the right Committee.
SERAP had written the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, to “use their good offices to urgently probe and refer to appropriate anti-corruption agencies allegations that N4.4 billion of public money budgeted for the National Assembly is missing, misappropriated, diverted or stolen, as documented in three audited reports by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.”
In the open letter dated January 30 and signed by SERAP Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said: “By exercising strong and effective leadership in this matter, the National Assembly can show Nigerians that the legislative body is a proper and accountable watchdog that represents and protects the public interest, and is able to hold both itself and the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to account in the management of public resources.”
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SERAP alleged that an audit report revealed that the fund budgeted for NASS was misappropriated.
SERAP, therefore, gave both Senator Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila 14 days to address and implement the recommendations contained in the audit reports.
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However, reacting to the development, the Senate said that the alleged infractions took place during the 8th Assembly and not the present 9th National Assembly.
Speaking with journalists on Sunday, Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Ajibola Basiru (APC, Osun Central) however, assured SERAP that if it diligently pursued its petition, the relevant committees of the two chambers would look into it.
He said: “This clarification is important as the wordings of the petition are capable of misleading the general public that SERAP is talking about the present National Assembly.
“It is not about any malfeasance by the current Assembly and its leadership as it is presently constituted. Far from it”.
Senator Basiru asked SERAP to channel its petition to the Committee on Public Account of both chambers of the National Assembly for necessary action.
“The proper channels to send the petitions should have been to the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Public Account if the real motive is genuinely to investigate the alleged corruption and not just to generate their usual publicity stunt,” he said.
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