[Mhiz Rebecca]

Chairman, House of Representatives
Committee on Media and Publicity, Hon.
Abdulrassaq Namdas, had said all 360
members of the eight National Assembly will
receive their official sport utility vehicle
(SUV) valued at N17 million each by
December.
Already, he said over 200 units of Peugeot
508 cars had been supplied to members,
leaving a balance of 160 vehicle awaiting to
be delivered.
His disclosure came against the backdrop of
alleged protests by some members of the
lower chamber who were yet to receive their
cars since the inauguration of the current
National Assembly.
Addressing journalists over the weekend,
Namdas said there appeared to be a
misconception on the mode of delivery of the
vehicles.
He said the vehicles were to be supplied by
instalments and not at once as being
misconstrued in some quarters.
Some of the lawmakers had expected that
given the National Assembly’s N10 billion
increase in the 2017 budget, the orders for
the remaining vehicles ought not to tarry.
But the House spokesman said the new
budget was yet to be implemented and no
money had been released.
He said the seeming delay in the delivery of
the vehicles was “not designed to frustrate
anybody and it’s not done in bad faith.”
According to him, And members are even
aware of that and they know it’s not
deliberate. Some of us that are members of
the House services, have been able to tell our
colleagues in various states as to the reason
why this thing has not come out fully.
“And even some people are alleging that
because we’ve increased our budget with
about N10 billion, why didn’t we complete
the payment and things like that.
“The challenge is that from day one, we
didn’t say we were going to take out money
and pay for this thing at once. We didn’t say
that we will be paying installment and the
company will also be supplying us, and that’s
why we collected about 50 and subsequently
it keeps coming bit by bit.”
He said:”We want to make it clear that the
story that some members are complaining, is
not true if you have 360 people and you
haven’t gotten all of these things at the same
time, we expect one or two people to feel like
it’s time that I get and I didn’t get.
“I want to tell you that we’ve not started
implementing the new budget and no fund
has been released in respect of that to say
why we’ve not been able to put that into new
cars. “