ABUJA – The House of Representatives has accused the sacked Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, of single handedly padding the 2016 budget to the tune of N250 billion.
According to the House Committee Chairman on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdas, the committee would refer Jibrin to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for investigation.
Namdas said the House leadership has received reports indicting Jibrin of collecting huge sums of money for constituency projects without execution.
He also accused Jibrin of deliberate plot to blackmail the President during the 2016 budget process by inserting funds for Muhammadu Buhari Film Village in his constituency in Kano State.
The Media and Publicity chairman said contrary to claim by Jibrin, he was actually removed based on “sundry acts of misconduct, incompetence, total disregard for his colleagues and abuse of the budgetary process, Immaturity and lack of capacity to handle the Office of Chairman, Appropriations.”
Namdas spoke further, “the leadership is also in receipt of complaints about his activities as Chairman of Finance Committee in the 7th Assembly, which had potentials to embarrass the House.
“Investigations found that from 2011 – 2015, Jibrin domiciled with Hadejia – Jama’are River Basin Authority and few other MDAs, some of the allocations meant for his former Finance Committee members.
“He was alleged to have aided the use of front companies that collected funds without executing most of the projects.
“The projects have been compiled and will be referred to the anti-graft agencies to establish why the projects were fully paid for and not executed.
“Who collected the funds and why has Jibrin not raised any alarm about the non-execution of the projects even now?”
“The leadership of both chambers, including the appropriations and finance committees are normally and traditionally allocated certain percentages.
“They are allocated certain percentages of these funds, for inclusion in the appropriation bill for projects.
“The remaining is distributed to members of the National Assembly for inclusion of their preferred projects in the budget. This has also been the established tradition over the years.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the 8th House of Representatives under the leadership of Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has not deviated from established practices, precedents and traditions in this matter.
“Jibrin was in the habit of collating, warehousing and manipulating sensitive information to blackmail people sometimes apparently for pecuniary purposes.
“And by the virtue of his position as appropriations chairman, he meets with very high and senior public officers at all levels.
“The Speaker and the leadership were inundated with complaints by heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), over harassment from the House Appropriations Chairman to engage in conduct and acts unbecoming of their offices.
“The leadership launched an internal investigation into these allegations and was largely satisfied that action had to be taken to remove him, in the interest of the integrity of the House.
“One clear example is the insertion of funds for the so called Muhammadu Buhari Film Village in his constituency in Kano State.
“This was without the consent or solicitation of Mr President. This has brought both Mr President and the government to disrepute.
““One of such is the numerous projects he claimed in a Channels TV interview in April 2016 to have sited in Mr President’s home town of Daura, Katsina State.
“He did not stop there. Jibrin went about soliciting members to nominate projects for him to help them include in the budget.
“When called upon to defend his actions as appropriation’s chairman, all he did was to be calling names of those members and the amount he helped include for them in the budget in an unsuccessful bid to silence them.
“it was also discovered that Jibrin, discreetly and clandestinely allocated monies for projects that are not clearly defined in the budget for the purposes of exploiting the ambiguities for personal gains.”
Jibrin had following is removal as Chairman, Appropriation Committee fired the first salvo, accusing the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara and three other Principal Officers of the House of padding the 2016 budget.
He subsequently called for their resignation, vowing to expose their dirty dealings.
