The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Monday, accused the Executive arm of government in Nigeria of paying lip service to the fight against corruption.
Tambuwal who was speaking at the 2013 International anti-corruption day organized by the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, in Abuja, siad the Economic and Financial Corrupt Practices Commission (EFCC) officials are corrupt.
He said “I am happy that EFCC is here because they are also corrupt. Let us start by asking them what happens to grants they receive from donor agencies which are neither budgeted nor accounted for? That is corruption.”
“This is why we have asked the House Committee of EFCC to look into some of these issues and report back to the House.
He added, “EFCC said it has started implementing the report on probe of the fuel subsidy regime. Let me say it here today that what EFCC said it is implementing is not the House report which exposed the enormous fraud in the system, but the one by Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede. We have done our job, go and do yours.”
Tmabuwal further questioned the outcomes of other probes embarked upon by the National assembly that are yet to be implemented even in the Executive arm of government.
“What has happened to all the exposed corruption cases? The Pension Scam, recent and obvious fraud in the Aviation sector, that of the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, where trillions of Naira from private investors were suspected to have been mismanaged. When we commenced investigation into the matter, what became of paramount importance to the EFCC was allegation that one of our members collected money as estacode to travel but failed to do so.
The Speaker continued, “Our members were immediately rushed to court for prosecution, meanwhile, the top government officer that was found culpable in the main fraud for which the National Assembly called for public hearing, nothing has happened to her till date.”
He went on to speak about the Oduahgate scandal and Arunma Oteh, “I cannot hear or read anywhere that she was invited by the EFCC or that any member of SEC was even invited. We at the National Assembly, for the sake of probity and accountability, agreed that budgetary allocation to the Commission should be suspended, only for us to hear that the Executive found a leeway of funding the agency. We are currently investigating that.”
“Coming to what happened in the Aviation industry recently, do we need an angel to report to EFCC that something happened there?”
