Abia Liaison Officer Tasks Deputy Speaker On Allocations

Abia State liaison officer at the National Assembly, Ifeanyichukwu Chinasa, has urged the deputy speaker, Benjamin Kalu, to account for the allocations to his office to Nigerians.
Chinasa made the call yesterday in response to a recent similar demand by Kalu to the state governor, Alex Otti, while speaking with newsmen in Umuahia, the state capital.

The Labour Party (LP) candidate against Kalu in the 2023 general election for Bende federal constituency said he should be held accountable, “and I’m holding him accountable right now.

”He has to tell us what has happened to those monies. I can’t begin to tell you how much it runs into. N30, N40, N50 of billions or more as total budget allocation to the deputy speaker’s office.

”This is aside from his constitutional projects. This is aside from other emoluments. He is not an arbiter to himself. He is accountable to the people.”

He doubted the claim by Kalu to have attracted numerous projects to the constituency since he was first elected in 2019 into the Green Chamber.

The liaison officer explained that he had looked at the submissions on the projects online just for a casual exploration and found them very spurious.

‎‎He demanded an independent media committee to verify and audit the projects and that he would do it if Kalu is unwilling to sponsor the expenses.

‎‎”Let them confirm the submissions on the Nkpa Bridge, the classrooms and others and I’m very willing to pay the cost to see that this is done. This is beyond politics now,” he said.

‎‎Asserting that he was not speaking as a politician, but as a free citizen of Uzuakoli in Bende local government area, he said politics should be separated from facts on the ground.

‎‎“And I’m coming just as a citizen of Bende. Let’s forget about my office or whatever it is. I just want this to be done the right way, politics aside. He has given us a long list of all the things he has done.

‎”There are several items running into billions which Kalu listed, but have not been executed, and therefore demand that he tell his constituents how much his own allocations are,” he added.

‎He challenged him to list his constituency projects and the things he has in his own budget, “because it’s not N1 billion, N10 billion, N20 billion, N30 billion or N40billion.

‎‎”Let him give us even the actual cost of the ones he has gradually enumerated. Let him give us the cost of each of those projects and let’s go down and do the independent verification.”

‎‎On Kalu’s empowerment programmes, he described them as anaemic, adding that they can’t be equated with what is being done in states like Edo, Delta, and others.