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Minister apologizes to N'Assembly over comments on 2017 budget
Fashola had accused the National Assembly of removing key projects of his ministry from the 2017 budget.
Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola
Fashola had accused the National Assembly of removing key projects of his ministry from the 2017 budget leaving projects like boreholes.
“In any event, allegations of half-truths are only a flawed response to the constitutional and developmental issues that have plagued Nigeria from 1999 about how to budget for the critical infrastructure in Nigeria," he said.
“It shows the conflict between the executive that wants to build big federal highways, bridges, power plants, rail and dams on one hand and a Parliament that wants to do small things.
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“The parliament wants to do things like boreholes, health centres, street lights and supplying grinding machines,” he added.
Irked by Fashola’s comments, the House of Representatives summoned the minister to appear before it’s adhoc committee.
The committee was chaired by Honourable Aliyu Madaki.
Addressing members of the committee on Friday, July 28, 2017, Fashola told lawmakers that there was no time he deliberately disparaged the National Assembly as reported in the media.
He thereafter apologized to the members for the misinterpretation of his comments.
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The minister had referred to the lawmakers as 'his friends'.
Earlier, Reps spokesman, Abdurazak Namdas had accused Fashola of expressing anger due to the removal of a N20billion contingencies cost from the 2017 budget.
“The provision for contingencies was found only in Fashola’s ministry and the fact that we removed that money is where the anger is. We sourced another N30bn and added that N21bn, bringing it to N50bn, which was distributed to 15 other roads in the country,” he said.
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