Ecological funds: Reps summon Fashola, Umana,  others over utilisation, disbursement

By Christiana Ekpa 

The House of Representatives probing the total consolidation and utilisation of Ecological Fund has summoned the ministry of Works and Housing, ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to appear before it on Thursday to defend the utilisation of the ecological funds disbursed to them.

The House equally summoned the ministry of Health and the Nigeria hydrological services.

Chairman of the committee, Hon. Isiaka Ibrahim while giving his ruling on Tuesday in Abuja said this will be the last time the committee will issue the summons to the affected ministries and agency having invited them severally put failed to honour them 

“Failure to appear, the House will apply its standing order”, he said.

Hon. Ibrahi also worried that the 36 States and the 774 local government of the federation have all benefited from the ecological funds but they are yet to appear before the committee to defend how they utilized the funds.

The committee members said it will like the ministry of Work and Housing, ministry of Niger Delta and FERMA to come and defend the alleged N15 billion they claimed was used to rehabilitate the East/West road despite allocation released by the federal government for the same project.

They also called on the ministry of health to appear before it to defend the utilisation of the alleged N20 billion ecological funds disbursed to them.

They accused agencies like the Nigeria hydrological services of collecting loans and are unavailable to defend it despite several invitation by the committee.

Earlier, the committee urged director of Finance, Federal Capital Territory Administration(FCTA) who appeared before the committee to submit on Monday documents from March 2021 to October 2022 in regards to how various area council of the FCT received the ecological funds shared.