SAN FRANCISCO, October 22, (THEWILL) – Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Hope Uzodinma, on Tuesday, declared that the Senate will not hastily join in the raging issue of the multi-million Naira bullet proof cars purchase scandal involving the Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Odua.
He also said that the minister did not appear as expected before his committee on Tuesday because no formal invitation had been sent to her over the Associated Airline crash probe.
Uzodinma told newsmen that his committee can only jump into the fray only after it had checked its records to ascertain if the multi-million Naira purchase scandal was appropriated.
Reacting to the allegation that the Senate was foot-dragging over the purchase of bullet-proof cars valued at N225m ( $ 1.6m ), Uzodimma rather justified the position of his colleagues who decided not to speak on the issue for now, saying “As the chairman of the senate committee on aviation, I have read a lot on the alleged scandal in the media and I believe other members of the committee are also up to date on the raging issue.
“However, we cannot jump into the fray of the controversy like that on the strength of media information alone without properly checking our records for facts and figures on whether the alleged vehicles bought were appropriated for or not by the agencies that purchased them.
“Our appeal to the general public for now is that they should exercise patience on the entire crisis bedeviling the aviation sector as the senate and in particular, its committee on aviation will surely carry out thorough investigation to unravel the whole crisis.”
On why the Minister did not appear before his committee, Senator Uzodima explained that the embattled minister and heads of agencies under her ministry did not appear before the aviation committee because they were yet to formally invite her.
He further explained that the senate had just approved the votes and proceedings of its sitting on October 8, where the senators unanimously agreed to summon the aviation minister and the heads of agencies under her.
“With the approval of the votes and proceedings of the last Senate session today (Tuesday), containing the summoning of the minister, our committee will now meet within the week to fix the exact date of invitation of the minister and other relevant aviation chiefs for questioning on the troubled sector.”
BY EMMA UCHE, ABUJA
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