2017 budget: Works ministry votes N1.58bn to buy cars – Senator

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Poverty Alleviation, Ali Wakili, has revealed that the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing has budgetted N1.580 billion to procure vehicles this year.

The lawmaker from Bauchi State lamented that this wass against Senators and members of the House of Representatives getting car loans only once in four years.

Wakili also said that emolument of lawmakers is fixed by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission and the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

His words: “My salary is not more than N774,000, with other allowances.

“I complained at plenary that the Federal Ministry of Works, Housing and Power, at one go, is buying vehicles worth N1.23 billion and at another, they are buying with N590 million.

“But, for senators, we are buying these vehicles once in our four-year tenure and Nigerians went as if heavens were falling.

“Nobody is giving you that car loan every year the way it is been portrayed.

They pay you housing allowance for the first year en bloc.

Subsequent years, it is paid the way it is done in civil service. They spread it over 12 months.’’

On lawmakers’ emoluments, he said the Seventh Assembly had addressed the issue but noted how, “unfortunately, social media is still circulating false information.”

The senator also debunked insinuations the National Assembly’s annual budget is shrouded in secrecy.