Following numerous petitions and complaints bordering on outright fraud on the implementation of its budget in the 2008 and 2009 Appropriation Acts, the Senate has resolved to probe the Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Uduese Essien, on how the ministry spent about N630.7 billion.
The Senate Committee on Housing and Urban Development, chaired by Senator Ikechukwu Obiorah, has asked the minister to submit relevant documents relating to the implementation of housing projects for the 2008 and 2009 fiscal years.
The 2008 Appropriation Act showed that N153,463,260,646 was appropriated for the ministry, in addition to N117,265,032,521 for Millennium Development Goals’ ongoing project for highways planning and design; while additional sum of N119,508,849,022 was allocated for capital projects.
In 2009, however, N208,616,140,016 was allocated for capital expenditure; N31,844,152,528 for recurrent non-debt expenditure; N25,326,877,293 for overhead expenditure and N6,517,275,235 was for personnel cost.
The committee informed the minister, in a letter signed by Obiorah, that it would be holding a public hearing to look into how the budgets for the two years were spent.
The letter reads in part: “You are requested to forward to the committee in two batches, all documents relating to the implementation of each project, including letters of award, interim certificate, certificate of completion, copies of banks guarantee or performance bond issued by the contractors, payment vouchers, letters or endorsements from the communities where the projects were sited and any other relevant documents that may aide the committee in its deliberations.”
