The Minority leader House of Representatives, Hon. Leo Ogor, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari was not properly informed about the worth of vehicles to be purchased for committees’ of the National Assembly.
Mr. Buhari had during his maiden presidential media chat on Wednesday, said that there was no way members of the National Assembly would purchase vehicles for themselves worth over N40 billion after collecting car loans.
It was learnt that the 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Reps would get a vehicle each despite collecting car loans a few weeks after their inauguration in June.
But speaking to journalists in Abuja on Friday, Ogor said that: “I think someone somewhere misled the president and wanted to set him against the National Assembly, or set the Nigerian public against lawmakers”.
The minority leader explained that though vehicles were usually bought for committees’ oversight functions, there was nothing like car loan.
According to him, what they collected was “car allowance, which was paid over the period of four years, and which even the president himself is entitled to base on the provision of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission Act”.
Rep. Ogor maintained that a proposal to buy cars for committees cannot be more than N4 billion, pointing out that N40 billion is about 40 percent of the National Assembly’s annual budget.
He also noted that the cars the National Assembly usually buys are not “exotic vehicles” but “rugged” ones that can travel to any part of the country.
