APC to Babachir, Ali: Honour Senate invitation

By Bode Olagoke and
Taiye Odewale, Abuja

All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, and the Comptroller-General of Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd) to honour the invitation extended to them by the Senate, saying it “is the right thing to do.”
APC National Publicity Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, who spoke in an interview yesterday in Abuja, said it would amount to disrespecting the institution of the National Assembly for anyone to ignore summons by the apex legislative body.

Abdullahi said the party wouldn’t support anything that would portray APC as lawless, adding that their refusal to honour the invitation would portray the party as not having respect for democratic institution.
“The party will not support any member of the party, any appointed official of government to disrespect the National Assembly because we recognise that the National Assembly is the very meaning of our democracy.

“The difference between dictatorship and democracy is that you have a National Assembly. In the military rule, you have executive, you have judiciary, the only institution you don’t have under the military rule is the National Assembly as it were or the House of Assembly in the state,” he said.
On the issue of the Senate-SGF face-off, the party spokesman said APC believes that the National Assembly has a constitutional role to investigate officials of government, irrespective of his or her level.

According to him, the party is not going to shield anybody from subjecting himself or herself to the constitutionally assigned role of the legislative arm of government.
“We, as a party, believe that anybody that has any question to answer on issues that relate to corruption should answer those questions.

“Nobody has been convicted and if it is on the level of investigation and the level of asking question about how people are treated and how money is utilised, I think the National Assembly has the right.
“So, we are not going to shield anybody and protect anybody because what the people will say is that because he is a member of your party and former member of the NWC, that is why you are trying to kill the matter’ but we say no! APC will not do that because President Muhammadu Buhari will not condone any form of corruption.

“So, if we are with him, we should believe in his leadership and we are committed to his fight against corruption. So, anybody that has a question to answer concerning corruption should answer it. So we are not going to shield or protect anybody in that area.”
Speaking on the need to stabilise institutions of democracy, Abdullahi said for the foundation of democracy to be strong, everyone, especially, those in high government offices must ensure they act in line with the law of the land and respect the various arms of government.

“We are not going to support anybody to disrespect our National Assembly and I believe that some of these issues that are coming up will very soon be resolved, and as you have learned early last week, the party said we are going to intervene on some of these issues and try to resolve them. I don’t think trying to intervene in a way to resolve the issues could be interpreted to mean that we are protecting some of these individuals that are involved.”

Regarding efforts being made by the APC leadership to broker peace between the SGF and the CG of Customs, Abdulahi said the party was reaching out to its members in the Senate, adding that the APC was looking for an auspicious time to bring the warring parties to the table to resolve the matter.
“Don’t forget that the National Assembly isn’t populated by only members of our party, there are also other parties that are represented in the National Assembly. But we are in the majority and we believe that if we intervene, we would be able to bring amicable resolution to the matter.”

Alleged N4trn revenue loss for probe
Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff, is set for a thorough investigation into how over N4 trillion collectable revenue was allegedly lost by the country between 2006 and 2016 due to avoidable leakage in the revenue monitoring mechanism of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
Chairman of the committee, Senator Hope Uzodinma (PDP, Imo West), who made the disclosure in Abuja during a media chat with journalists, said the committee would stop at nothing in recovering the money, which, according to him, was lost to lapses and various infractions by the revenue-generating agency.

He specifically disclosed that preliminary investigation already made by the committee, revealed that the N4 trillion leakage was as a result of various forms of infractions, including abuse and non-implementation of policies targeted at achieving high revenue income for the country through various levies, duties and tariffs on imported goods.
He said: “The committee frowns at the quantum of revenue losses and it will stop at nothing in ensuring that those involved in this ugly act would return all recoverable monies with them.
“The committee also frowns upon the level of collusion and corruption within the Customs Service. At the end of our current investigation, all these will become a thing of the past and customs revenue will be enhanced and non oil revenue will be improved upon.

“What we are investigating is not money spent. It is the leakages. For instance, I am supposed to pay XYZ amount of duty, I will abandon the documentation, go get fake documents, collude with customs, pay maybe a fraction of it and carry my goods. With that, the true import circle is not closed.”
He stressed that in most cases, the amount of money spent was not commensurate with the number of goods being imported, adding that the committee had started investigating activities of companies and banks indicted in the matter.

“We will not mention the companies involved because we are also very careful of the integrity and public perception of some of these companies, being that some of them are in the Stock Market. We will be diplomatic in carrying out this investigation.
“This is to the extent that little or no damage will be done to the integrity and image of such companies provided that government revenues in their hands will be recovered.”
On the retrospective policy on payment of customs duties on old vehicles, the lawmaker expressed dissatisfaction that the service was overstepping its bounds by making policies rather than implementing them.

“It, therefore, sounds very strange to hear that Customs gets up and says they are making a policy. That is what I am yet to understand and there is no way to fathom that before the law.
“The referral is already before us. I was waiting for him to appear before the Senate before we commence a full blown investigation into some of those issues that have been referred to us.
“The whole idea is about governance and governance is about the people and nobody is licensed or entitled to talk about the people more than the elected representatives. In my view, there is no hullaballoo. We will discuss with them and wise reasoning will prevail.”

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