The Office of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is not under investigation in the ongoing probe of National Home Grown School Feeding Programme by the House of Representatives, the House Committee on Public Accounts has said.
Chairman of the House Committee, Hon. Wole Oke who made the assertion while addressing the Permanent Secretary of Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Mrs Olusola Idowu on Tuesday.
The lawmaker added that rather than being targeted at the Vice President, the ongoing probe was aimed at getting comprehensive documentary evidence of procurement carried out by Federal Ministry of Budget & National Planning under the National Social Investment Programmes.
He said: “By our records, the office of the Vice President is responsible for policy formulation and monitoring of the National Social Investment Programme.
“Issue bothering on procurement was handled by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning which has now been merged with the Ministry of Finance.
“We have it on record that the Ministry of Budget and National Planning handled all issues of procurement from 2016 to September 2019 when the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs was created.
“Our request is for the Ministry of Budget and National Planning to make available all relevant procurement records for the various items under the NSIP. Our investigation has nothing to do with the office of the Vice President but the Ministry.
“A total of N1.79 trillion was budgeted for the programme for which over N600 billion was expended. The Bank of Industry has appeared and made some explanations.
“The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs has also appeared and made their presentation on N-Power. We have also had presentations from the Programme Officers of the other three programmes.
“Our interest now is on the Home School Feeding programme and that is what the Ministry to give us records of procurement. Nobody should make a mistake about that and our mission are not available for anybody to use to malign anybody. We want to put that on record that we are not investigating the office of the Vice President.”
