The Senate yesterday said? the Julius Berger construction company would be summoned to explain the additional N9bn demanded for the construction of the vice president’s new official residence.
Addressing newsmen on the issue, the chairman of the committee, Senator Smart Adeyemi, who said it decided to invite Julius Berger for public hearing in January, added that it was up to the executive to state whether? the additional amount for the Vice president’s house should be stopped.
He said: “Our own job as legislators, especially when we go out for oversight functions, is to expose all inadequacies. It is for the media, the civil society and the executive to take it from where we have stopped.
“We do not have the power to compel anybody to be arrested or prosecuted. If we expose something, it stops there. We’ve invited Julius Berger construction company handling the project to come and justify it and we are still on this. We are bringing them to a round table.
If we had not wanted it to be exposed, we would not have gone there at all or we wouldn’t have gone there with journalists. We want Nigerians to see the sincerity of what we are doing. We have made it open to Nigerians, and it is for Nigerians or the executive to decide whether the project should be stopped.