The Senate has defended its decision to acquire 360 Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) for its members amid controversy over the cost and necessity of the vehicles.
The Red Chamber clarified that the imported SUVs were preferred over locally manufactured ones, although they did not disclose the exact cost of each vehicle.
This decision faced opposition from the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, which sought a court injunction to halt the delivery of the SUVs, valued at N57.6 billion. Each SUV was reported to cost approximately N160 million.
Addressing the criticism during a press conference, Sunday Karimi, the Committee on Senate Services Chairman, argued that lawmakers were being singled out unfairly.
Karimi said, “Somebody that is a minister has more than three Land Cruisers, Prado, and other vehicles, and you are not asking them questions, why us?
“These vehicles that you see go to Nigeria roads today, If I go home once, my senatorial district, I come back spending a lot on my vehicles because our roads are bad.
“I said the decision that we took on using Land Cruiser is the cost and durability.”
He explained further, “Before they came up with this. It is not the decisions of the senators alone. We analyzed arriving at Land Cruisers.
“It was based on a comparative analysis of the cost of technical issues and durability on Nigerian roads.
” We want something that we can maintain for another four years, and the issue of buying vehicles from the National Assembly, you know, it is a recurring issue; it occurs every assembly. It will always come up.“
The lawmaker further explained that even at the state level, assembly members had access to official vehicles. Karimi added, “If you got to state Houses of Assembly today, check out, most of them before they were even inaugurated, the governor would have bought vehicles waiting for them, even local government chairmen.
“I drove the vehicle my local government chairman uses, so why the National Assembly?”
Justifying the high cost of the vehicles, Karimi said it was because the National Assembly owed the suppliers about N16bn.
He said, “I am the chairman of the senate service. When I came into the senate, when they gave me their liability, they had a liability of over N16 billion that is made up of different vehicles of the 7th, 8th, and 9th Assemblies.
“If you are a businessman and you supply vehicles for somebody in 2014 or 2015 or so and up till now they owed you.
“I am not trying to defend anybody; if you see them selling Land Cruisers in the market, let’s say it is A cost. You don’t expect somebody that will supply it to supply it at the price they are selling it in the market.
“It has to leave a margin, and the civil service for supply allowed for 25% margin plus that and VAT, and I think that VAT is 7.5. Out of that 25% margin, they will still remove 5% tax from it.
“You are telling someone to supply, and he may even not end up making payment for three years, and you want him to supply at the price they are selling in the market; it is not possible.”
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