The Taraba State House of Assembly has denied media reports that it took ₦1.5Bn bribe from the State Governor, Agbu Kefas, to approve the request for ₦350bn bond.
Spokesperson of the House Mr. Nelson Len, who gave the clarification on Friday -earlier today, March 28 – said the allegations were not only far-fetched but baseless and mere distraction.
Honourable Len said the House approved the bond request after duly considering it and ascertaining that it was in the best interest of the State.
He maintained that the Governor does not need to bribe the House for the members to perform their constitutional responsibilities that they are elected to perform.
“The State Governor has been very supportive to the House, and this is reflective in our ability to do things for our various constituents even when there is no provision for Constituency Project Allowances for members,” Len said.
“When people say that the House is a robber stamped Assembly, I laugh. We were not elected to come and oppose the Executive. Instead, we were elected to work collaboratively with the Executive arm of government to provide dividends of democracy to the people.
“What you also need to understand is that, contrary approvals for loans do not necessarily translate to actually accessing the loans. In most cases, some conditions may not be met and that will affect full disbursement of the facilities. So the general impression that the government has borrowed so much may be very wrong.”
It would be recalled that the House gave approval for the State Governor to take a bond of ₦350bn last week, with some people alleging that the governor gave ₦1.5bn to the House as kickback, to secure their approval.
