Obasanjo writes Saraki, Dogara; condemns ‘insensitive’ plan to buy cars for lawmakers

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has strongly condemned the plan by members of the National Assembly to procure cars for themselves, describing such move as “insensitive.”
He made this condemnation in a letter dated January 13, 2016 which was addressed to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara, TheCable reports.
Obasanjo, in the strong-worded letter, accused the lawmakers of perpetrating a culture of financial misconduct with the “opaqueness” in National Assembly budgets over the years, stressing that a pool cars would have been sufficient to do the committee work, given all the allowances the lawmakers have already collected since their inauguration in June 2015.
This is coming on the heels of a recent disclosure by President Muhammadu Buhari during a presidential media chat that he was opposed to the decision of the lawmakers to buy 469 cars with “N47.5 billion.”
While acknowledging that there are 109 senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives, making a total of 469 federal lawmakers, Obasanjo stressed that, “a pool of a few cars for each Chamber will suffice for any Committee Chairman or members for any specific duty.
“The waste that has gone into cars, furniture, housing renovation in the past was mind-boggling and these were veritable sources of waste and corruption. That was why they were abolished. Bringing them back is inimical to the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians,” he wrote.
The former President also accused the lawmakers of perpetrating constitutional breaches by not abiding by the emoluments fixed for them by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC.
According to him, “By our Constitution, the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission is charged with the responsibility of fixing emoluments of the three arms of government: executive, legislature and judiciary. The Commission did its job but by different disingenuous ways and devices, the legislature had overturned the recommendation of the Commission and hiked up for themselves that which they are unwilling to spelt out in detail, though they would want to defend it by force of arm if necessary. What is that?”
Obasanjo challenged the lawmakers to be transparent in their finances by publishing their recurrent expenditure and opening their books to an external auditor from 1999 till date.
He stressed that, “The National Assembly should have the courage to publish its recurrent budgets for the years 2000, 2005, 20 10 and 2015. That is what transparency demands. With the number of legislators not changing, comparison can be made. Comparisons in emoluments can also be made with countries like Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and even Malaysia and Indonesia who are richer and more developed than we are.”