Date Published: 06/05/11

How we shared N10Billion Loan -Bankole

Embattled former Speaker of the House of Representatives Dimeji Bankole has started revealing how the House of Representatives blew a whooping N10 Billion loan in three months.

The Speaker in a released signed by his media aide, Idowu Bakare, stated that the loan facility was distributed to all the principal officers with the exception of himself and his deputy Alhaji Usman Bayero Nafada.

According to Bakare, “the former speaker and his deputy never benefitted from the loan as they received only the old rate they have been receiving before the issue of increment was recommended by a 37 member Committee and endorsed by an Executive session of the House.”

“Before the increment quarterly allowance to the office of the Speaker was N100million while his deputy received N80 million. The loan in question was distributed among other principal officers and the remaining members of the House as shown in the table below.”

The Speaker’s Media Aide added that “Others principal officer’s increment shows that the Minority Whip, Deputy Minority Leader and Deputy Minority Whip that have been receiving N36million per quarter received an increment of N14million to make up N50million each while the rest of the members got an increment of N14 million on the usual N28 Million per quarter.

The total sum shows that the increment amounted to N5.012billion per quarter and the loan was taken for two quarter amounting to N10.024billion plus interest.

The loan was taken pursuant of an Executive Session decision of the House on Tuesday March 30, 2010 where the report of a 37 member Committee set up on March 25, 2010 to look into agitation of member for enhancement of running costs of members was reported by Hon. Independence Ogunewe. The report was approved by the House in executive Session of March 30 2010.