The National Assembly has hit back at the Works, Housing and Power Minister Babatunde Fashola saying the former governor was not the minister of Lagos State but that of the whole country.
The former Lagos State governor stirred controversy after he accused the National Assembly of sabotaging the completion of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Read also: Fashola hints that Ambode and him are fighting
Fashola alleged that the lawmakers slashed N21b from the budgeted sum of N31b for the road.
The minister’s allegation was not met with silence but drew angry reaction from both the Senate and House of Representatives
Reacting, the Senate spokesman, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi said Fashola was economical with the truth adding that the minister was acting as if he was Lagos minister.
Abdullahi said, “Even as at last year the 2016 Appropriation Act voted N40 billion for the project on the insistence of the Ministry and only N26 billion was released. If we had known, the rest N14 billion could have been allocated to other critical roads across the country.
“It was agreed that we should give the Private Finance Initiative a chance to complement government’s resources in the delivery of critical infrastructure assets across the country. Hence, in this year’s budget, we have engaged with the Government and private sector groups who have assured that they will resume funding of the project.
“So, we only provided the fund in the budget that would ensure work does not stop before the funds from the private sector start coming in .What we reduced from Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in the 2017 budget estimate was spread on Oyo-Ogbomoso road in the South-west, Enugu-Onitsha road in the South-East, and two other critical roads in the North-East and North-West; and this was done to achieve equity. The Minister should realise he is Minister for the entire country and not just that of Lagos State.”
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