The house of representatives committee on federal capital territory (FCT) area councils and ancillary matters has summoned Mariya Bunkure, the FCT minister of state.
Fredrick Agbedi, chairman of the committee, issued the summons during the panel’s sitting on Monday, citing the minister’s alleged failure to appear for the FCT budget defence.
Agbedi said if Bunkure and other department heads fail to appear on Tuesday, action will be taken against them.
“It is the resolve of this committee that the minister of state and all the agencies appear before this committee by 4pm tomorrow, the 27th day of May 2025,” he said.
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“Failure to do that, this committee will involve appropriate legislative powers against the minister of state and the agencies.
“It is also worrisome to see that this all-important budget session is only being attended by three agencies out of 14 departments under the jurisdiction of this committee.
“How do you expect this committee to conclude our work and make recommendations for the house? It means that Mr President has to take some further steps to ensure that his appointees handling some of these very important assignments with levity are directed to wake up to their responsibilities.”
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President Bola Tinubu transmitted N1,783 trillion as the FCT budget for the 2025 fiscal year to the national assembly early this month.
Tinubu asked the national assembly to ensure expeditious consideration of the FCT appropriation.
Last week, Nyesom Wike, minister of FCT, appeared before the senate and house of representatives’ committees on appropriation to defend the budget.
Wike said out of the N1.78 trillion budget, N1.28 trillion, representing 72.3 percent, is allocated to capital projects, while N494.1 billion, 27.7 percent, will cover recurrent expenditure.
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