By James Emejo in Abuja

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Media and Publicity, Hon. Abdulrassaq Namdas, had said all 360 members of the eight National Assembly will receive their official sport utility vehicle (SUV) valued at N17 million each by December.

Already, he said over 200 units of Peugeot 508 cars had been supplied to members, leaving a balance of 160 vehicle awaiting to be delivered.

His disclosure came against the backdrop of alleged protests by some members of the lower chamber who were yet to receive their cars since the inauguration of the current National Assembly.

Addressing journalists over the weekend, Namdas said there appeared to be a misconception on the mode of delivery of the vehicles.

He said the vehicles were to be supplied by instalments and not at once as being misconstrued in some quarters.

Some of the lawmakers had expected that given the National Assembly’s N10 billion increase in the 2017 budget, the orders for the remaining vehicles ought not to tarry.

But the House spokesman said the new budget was yet to be implemented and no money had been released.

He said the seeming delay in the delivery of the vehicles was “not designed to frustrate anybody and it’s not done in bad faith.”

According to him, And members are even aware of that and they know it’s not deliberate. Some of us that are members of the House services, have been able to tell our colleagues in various states as to the reason why this thing has not come out fully.

“And even some people are alleging that because we’ve increased our budget with about N10 billion, why didn’t we complete the payment and things like that.

“The challenge is that from day one, we didn’t say we were going to take out money and pay for this thing at once. We didn’t say that we will be paying installment and the company will also be supplying us, and that’s why we collected about 50 and subsequently it keeps coming bit by bit.”

He said:”We want to make it clear that the story that some members are complaining, is not true if you have 360 people and you haven’t gotten all of these things at the same time, we expect one or two people to feel like it’s time that I get and I didn’t get.

“I want to tell you that we’ve not started implementing the new budget and no fund has been released in respect of that to say why we’ve not been able to put that into new cars. “

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