Onwuka Nzeshi
17 November 2008
Abuja — As the House of Representatives winds up investigation into the purchase of vehicles for its standing committees, the Central Bank of Nigeria at the weekend testified before the Committee as to whether payments for the controversial purchase of 380 Peugeot 407 cars by the National Assembly was done through the apex bank.
Deputy Director Banking Services, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Romanus Okafor, who appeared before the Committee and Ethics and Privileges said the apex bank issued three cheques namely a N700million cheque (No- 00001770); N230million cheque (No- 00001805) and a N585.6million cheque (No- 0001832) for the three tranches of payment to PAN in respect of the cars.
This contradicts the earlier testimony by a Lagos lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo that payments to Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN) during the transactions were facilitated using Zenith Bank cheques.
Chairman, House Committee on Privileges, Honourable Sanni Minjibir told reporters that the Committee will be winding up having heard from the apex bank and other parties linked with the controversy.
According to Minjibir, the next stage of the Committee's assignment will be the writing of the report and its submission to the House in plenary.
"All things being equal, for this particular allegation concerning the car purchase, I believe that we have made inquiries in all the places that we should and we have invited the members of the press to cover it so that you will see and judge for yourselves whether these things are being transparently done or not".
"So the next stage is to sit down and make sure that we compile these testimonies and articulate it in a format that will be presented to the House as a report. I believe that if we don't have any other issues arising, we should go and write the report". "By our rules when we sit down to write this report it is not just a question of an individual sitting down to write a report, it is a task that is before the whole committee and the whole committee will sit down and deliberate and whatever comes out as the final report would have gotten the endorsement of the majority of the members of the committee," Minjibir said.
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