Nigeria’s National Assembly has paid out a total N6.6billion for the purchase of exotic cars for its members, Premium Times NG and UDEME report.
Official documents obtained by this newspaper showed that the purchases were made by the three arms of the federal parliament—the Senate, the House of Representatives and the management unit of the lawmaking arm.
Records show that the Senate is the biggest spender, purchasing a total N3.2billion worth of cars from 10 different contractors.
The lower chamber followed closely, acquiring N3billion worth of exotic cars in 17 deals.
The management of the National Assembly wrapped up the car procurement extravaganza, taking delivery of N430million worth of cars using five different dealers.
The contractors who supplied the exotic cars to the Senate include Lanre Shittu Motors (N900million), Mushin Motors (N152million), Sunstar Integrated Services Limited (N136.4million), Assamad Procurement & Services Limited (N401.2million), Kaffe International Investment Limited (N115.4million), and Stable Technology Limited (N123million).
The upper chamber also bought cars from Dua Creations Limited (N77million), Swiftcode Technologies Limited (N181million), Frontline Infasys Ltd (N91.3), and Lachoso Engineering Systems Nigeria Ltd (N55million).
For its own share of the car bonanza, the House of Representatives turned to Wadatu Global Company Limited (N145million), Bimfirst Multiventures Ltd (N50million), Vish Integrated Service Limited (N50million), Pimpex Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. (N145million), 3 Brothers Concept Nigeria Limited (N400million), Ideki Services Limited (N100million), Braimuh Nigeria Limited (N250million), Mahasam Nigeria Limited (N500million), Unified Marketing Limited (N145million), Hydofield Services Nigeria Ltd. (N60million), A.A. Marmaro Nigeria Limited (N111.4million), Auto Beauty (N97million), Southern Contractors (N50million), Nwezei Merchandised Limited (N50million), and Assamad Procurement & Services Nigeria Ltd (N60million).
Other contractors who supplied vehicles to the lower chamber are MNM Construction Ent. Services Ltd. (N100million), Jaaniyat Inter Concept Ltd (N60million), PAN Nigeria Ltd (N160million), D.C. Okika Nigeria (N60million), Paki Int’l Motors Ltd (N80million), Afric Capital Nigeria Ltd (N250million), Pranav Contracting Nigeria Ltd (N50million), Sure Delivery Nigeria Limited (N71million), Shazamzam Construction Ltd (N103million), Omatie Global (N366.1million), Bilmos Nigeria Ltd (N400million), and Clario View Nigeria Ltd (N52.5 million).
The federal legislature’s management unit bought its own N430million worth of cars from Omaiauto Ltd (N21million), M/S Atlantic Authos Ltd (N100million), Bestline Nigeria Ltd (N50million), Alheri Nigeria Ltd (N150million) and Autonorths Nigeria Ltd (100 million).
Investigations by this newspaper show that 30 of these contractors are not registered on the Bureau of Public Procurement’s database of federal contractors, indicating they are ineligible to be given jobs or paid any money from the federal treasury. Seven of the 30 are not even registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission.
This newspaper was able to establish that payments for the cars were made from an extra-budgetary N10 billion discreetly and curiously released to the National Assembly by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, under the guise of helping the lawmaking arm to settle its outstanding liabilities.
Two reliable sources in the National Assembly described the payments for the cars as a charade, saying they were made as part of arrangements to funnel bribes to some top officials of the National Assembly.
The National Assembly has its own block budget of N125billion from which it ought to pay for all its purchases and liabilities.
The illegal car procurements were made at a time Unicef said 10.5million Nigerian children were out of school due to what government blamed on lack of enough funds for the nation’s educational sector.
