Yoruba group faults National Assembly on interrogation of loans, budgets

A Southwest socio-political organisation, Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum, yesterday, said most committees and leadership of the National Assembly appeared to have failed in their constitutional responsibilities to appropriately interrogate budgets and proposed loans and what such are actually meant to achieve before approving for the executive.

The forum chided the National Assembly for either doing this out of share ignorance, desperation to satisfy the President and party sentiments or the act of corruption affecting Nigeria’s growth and development.

In a statement, President of the forum, Akin Malaolu, said: “It did not come as a surprise to us the revelation on the uneven standards for the rail tracks used and employed to give Niger Republic a modern development opportunity than to what now obtained in Nigeria, which is the 1960 old gauge tracks.

“This revelation came rather too late in the first instance, because the loans for railroad constructions across the nation and with the ones running to Niger Republic, were all at their first instance, placed before the National Assembly for approvals. It is, therefore, to be observed that members of some committees are either mere decorations or just anything goes lovers if during the time of foreign loan approvals, such discrepancies were not seen,” the statement stated.

The forum also said there was need to bring to bare and correct other insertions made for loans taking and project, such like the plan to borrow from abroad $200 million for mosquito nets and malaria drugs.