Former President Goodluck Jonathan has faulted media reports which claimed that the House of Representatives planned to investigate his administration over N11.1 billion State House Clinic budgets between 2015-2017.
A statement issued Friday by his Media Adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, the former president said he was not responsible for the implementation of 2015 budget and therefore would be the wrong person to answer questions on provisions of a budget he was not part of.
“The House of representatives resolved Thursday 12 October 2015, to probe 2015-2017 allocations to Aso Rock Clinic and some media reports are needlessly dragging the name of former President Goodluck Jonathan into it. We had thought that the media should be the first to remind Nigerians that since Dr. Jonathan left office on May 29, 2015, he had absolutely nothing to do with the implementation of the budget for that year.
“For emphasis, the 2015 Appropriation Bill which was passed by the parliament in April was signed into law in May, 2015. And since the procurement process, based on the new procurement law, takes at least three months to complete, there was no way Jonathan would have had anything to do with the budget implementation for 2015, before vacating Aso Rock Villa on May 29, 2015.
“Going by the way some people make insinuations on issues that border on the development of our country, it would appear as if Ex-President Jonathan had been in office since independence in 1960, and probably still be in charge today. We expect media houses to always do proper investigations to avoid the convenient choice of always using Jonathan as the scapegoat for the misdeeds of others.”