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The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Senate Services, Senator Ibrahim Gobir |
- The Nigerian Senate has denied purchasing 108 cars for it members, saying only 36 cars were purchased one for each state of the Federation.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Senate Services, Senator
Ibrahim Gobir, gave the clarification on Tuesday during a meeting in
Abuja.
He told reporters that the Senate decided to purchase only 36 cars
which cost about 36.5 million Naira each due to lack of funds.
“I will like to say that the issue that we bought 108 cars is wrong.
“We bought 36 cars and this is because each Senator in each state is
either a chairman or a vice chairman and we gave one car to each state
to share among themselves as utility car.
“And on the issue of buying cars without appropriation, it is very
wrong. This has been appropriated in the 2015 budget and we used what we
had in the 2015 budget to by the 36 cars.
“The issue of the cost of the car. The showroom price is 36.5 million
Naira and we are surprised. The car we bought is Land Cruiser VSR V8
not V6 and the minimum showroom price is about 31 million Naira and when
you put 10 per cent VAT and Tax that will arrive at 36.5 million
Naira,” Senator Gobir explained.
Going by the figures given by Senator Gobir the 36 cars cost about 1.3 billion Naira.
There were reports on Monday on the purported purchase of 108 cars by
the Senate, with the Nigeria Labour Congress urging the lawmakers to
return the cars or face its wrath.
The NLC President, Mr Ayuba Wabba, was quoted by This Day as saying
that the purchase of the cars was “wrong and insensitive” in the face of
the suffering of the masses.
“We consider as appalling, insensitive and greedy the decision of the
Senate to acquire 108 Toyota Land Cruiser vehicles (one for each
member, except the Senate president) after collecting ‘car loans’ in
August last year for the same purpose.
“It is equally morally despicable and shameful that they are doing
this after publicly admitting that the standing committees of the Senate
are unable to perform their statutory functions due to the paucity of
funds,”Mr Wabba said.
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