Face Senate over bailout funds, APC tells Fayose

Agency woos panel over N1.2b head office
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has enjoined Governor Ayodele Fayose to summit himself for scrutiny by the Senate Committee on States and Local Governments over bailout fund for Ekiti.

It maintained that the fund was loose and entirely different from the monthly federal allocations monitored by a relevant authority.

The party, in a correspondence by its publicity secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said the advice became imperative following the governor’s memo to the Federal Government, citing separation of power and independence of the state in the appropriation and application of federal funds. He had insisted that the fiscal independence by the states would not allow his government to open its books to the visiting Senate committee to ascertain how the bailout funds were spent.

Meanwhile, the Border Community Development Agency (BODA) yesterday sought the support of the committee in its quest to build a befitting N1.2 billion head office in Abuja next year.

The agency wants the panel to facilitate the capturing of the vote in the next appropriation.

The Executive Secretary, Numoipre Wills, who made the request when the committee visited, said: ‘’We have acquired our own land here in Abuja and all the paper works and drawings are ready. Making the N1.2 billion available to us in the 2017 budget will enable us build a befitting headquarters that could accommodate our staff. We have also written to government to allocate any of the seized EFCC houses to us but all of these are yet to materialise.”

The agency was established in 2003 by an Act of the National Assembly but underwent an amendment in 2006 to facilitate the development of border communities nationwide.