ABUJA — Members of the House of Representatives from the South-West yesterday walked out of the proceedings of the House to protest alleged transfer of money meant for the Bar Beach projects in Lagos for projects in the North-West and North-East zone of the country.
The protest forced the leadership of the House to threaten not to approve the N5 billion voted for the Beach project in 2005 Budget.
Leading the South-West legislators, Mr. Wunmi Bewaji told newsmen at a press conference that the money, a sum of N200 million, was transferred for projects in the North-West and North-East against the rules of virement laid by the House.
According to him, the N200 million was part of the counterpart funding for the Bar Beach Coastal Erosion Control project. He noted that in line with House rules, whatever must be debated in the House must be reflected in the weekly notice of the House and that this particular virement request was not included in any notice.
He added: “Also whatever money is vired from any project must be spent for other project in same zone. As a region, we have decided to fight this battle because the projects for which the money was vired for was not even included in the 2003 Budget.
“We called on the Speaker to revert this matter within one week otherwise we will start boycotting proceedings of the House.”
The South-West legislators argued that even though the money transferred would not complete the Bar Beach projects, it should have been used to commence the engineering works.
Shortly after the press conference, Speaker of the House, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari attempted to pacify the legislators but they told him that nothing short of the reversion of illegal transfer would pacify them.
Addressing newsmen on behalf of the leadership of the House, the Majority Leader, Alhaji Abdul Ningi stated that the action of the South-West legislators was shocking and mischievous.
He said, “we are mandated by the leadership of this House to come and state the reaction to a press conference given to you by the caucus of the South-West region of this country.
“It is important to put records straight. As members of the House of Representatives, we owe it a duty to defend the constitution and the integrity of all Nigerians.
“However we are so shocked that some of our colleagues came to you this afternoon to complain of virement of N200 million taken off from the Bar Beach Water project.
“These honourable members so soon forgot that yesterday (Wednesday), just as we did for the virement for Bar Beach, a total sum of N4 billion was taken away from projects meant for the North-East, the North-West and the North-Central and taken to the South-South and the South-East because of the deplorable condition of their roads there."
