By Ibrahim Garba.
The Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, on Monday, justified spending N1.5m to fuel six vehicles in her convoy on an official trip to Anambra State.
The minister made the statement when she featured as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The development comes five days after her heated argument with members of the House of Representatives, which wanted to know how her ministry appropriated unrelated expenditures, including N45 million for a New Year party, N20 million for sanitary pads and N1.5 million for fuelling.
Speaking on the live television programme on Monday, Kennedy-Ohanenye expressed surprise that the lawmakers could quiz her for expending N1.5m on fuelling their journey, saying the amount wasn’t a big deal.
She said, “How many vehicles? I travelled with the staff in the bus, two security vehicles, one DSS and one police, my vehicle, the backup, and the other one. About six vehicles went all the way to Anambra State for a job and we came back. What is N1.5m for those cars and officials? Everybody knows how much it costs to fuel duty vehicles especially going by road on a ling trip.
“But when I was explaining, they (lawmakers) won’t even give you a chance to explain. They will tell you to just say a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ How can I say yes or no without an explanation?”
The minister further explained how her predecessor approved N45m to host 33 schools in the Federal Capital Territory to a party and bought a bag worth N15,000 each for each student.
She, however, absolved herself of blame in the arrangement, reiterating that the budget had been approved before she took over the ministry.
“Let me start by saying that last year’s budget was not done while I was there. All the contracts were also not awarded while I was there. Most of them were awarded in March and the contract money was released in May before I arrived in August. When I came in, I got a brief from my team about the contract and I cross checked most of them.
“A lot of them have not been executed till date due to paucity of funds. Only about four files were cleared and not only that, the ministry had a lot of liabilities due to underfunding. So, those other people who didn’t do the contract were part of the people claiming their monies were not paid. Again, they talked about N45m used for a party.
“As I said, I was not there when those budgets were made. That party was held and even the chairman of Womenj Affairs came there. They invited about 33 schools and thousands of children were there. I was told they did sensitisation by going around schools. They provided transport to every school coming and gave each student a school bag that cost about N15,000 each. There were a lot of other things inside the bag. They were equally given food.
“That was how the N45m was spent. It was their way of handling things before I came. I always maintained my position that we must change the narratives since I came; this was partly one of the things I never would have tolerated as a minister. I had a plan built around the renewed hope agenda of Mr President,” she said.
