Hembe/Oteh bribery allegation: Probe of MDAs’ll go on -Senate•Considers N306.499bn FCT budget

Posted by admin Legislature, Senate Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

Senate has said that bribery allegations by the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the former Chairman of House Committee on Capital Market, Hermen Hembe would not deter the National Assembly from continuing with its probe of federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

Senate spokesman, Enyinnaya Abaribe said this in Abuja yesterday.
Speaking at the weekly briefing of Senate Correspondents yesterday, Abaribe said investigation of the executive arm of government is geared towards exposing corruption in order to ensure good governance.

“We are certainly concerned about the allegations. When any allegation is made against the committees of the National Assembly, we will certainly be concerned.
“But we expect that the Ethics Committees of the legislature would be able to handle that as part of our internal mechanism at dealing with such issues.”

In response to developments that Hembe and other members of the committee had stepped aside to enable investigation of the bribery allegation commence, Abaribe replied: “Of course I understand that the committee has on its own removed themselves from that investigation. That is as it should be.
“There is an adage that anybody who desires equity must come to equity with clean hands and when there is any perception that you are not going there with clean hands of course you will have to remove yourself from it and then let the process continue.

“We think that the matter is being given the appropriate attention as it ought to be in the House of Representatives.”
Abaribe added that the Senate has the mandate of Nigerians to probe any case of corruption when the need arises, maintaining that it was not a failure on the part of Senate that most of the probe reports have not been implemented.
He noted that the Executive should be held responsible because, most of the reports and resolutions of investigations by the National Assembly have not been implemented.

“The question should actually be channeled to the executive why resolutions arising from public hearings have not been implemented. We have a mandate and that is to expose corruption. When we have concluded our work, we expect the executive to take it up from there,” he said.
Meanwhile, Senate has commenced consideration of the N306, 499 billion Federal Capital Territory (FCT) statutory budget for 2012 budget.
A breakdown of the budget shows that N42.296 billion is for personnel cost while N44.747 billion is for overheads and the balance N219.456 billion would be deployed for capital projects in the FCT.

-Sunwp_posts