A Lagos lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, has petitioned the Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, over the purchase of 380 units of Peugeot 407 cars in the House.

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Speaker, House of Representative, Hon. Dimeji Bankole

In an open letter titled, “Open request for explanation regarding allegations of fraud in the House” made available to our correspondent on Sunday, Keyamo is asking Bankole to explain an “overpayment or misappropriated” fund up to the tune of N421.5m on the purchase.

Keyamo said that the House paid N2.3bn to Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Limited for the 380 units of 407 ST Sports (auto) at the rate of N6.2m each as quoted by the company.

He said that surprisingly, what the company quoted and what the House paid for was not what was eventually supplied.

He said rather than the 407 ST Sport (auto) with the unit price of N6.2m, what was supplied was the 407 Comfort (auto) with the unit price of N5.1m.

The difference per unit of car supplied, according to him, is N1.1m which translates to a total of N421.4m.

He said, ”Another curious thing about this transaction shows that the total amount for the contract, that is the sum of N2,359,486,500 includes VAT. In the various payment vouchers (Annexure 7, 8&9) VAT was clearly included which came up to N117,974,325.00

”Interestingly, it would appear that the House, under your leadership, went behind again to pay the same amount directly to the Federal Inland Revenue Services. Why pay twice for VAT? This obviously needs some explanations in case I am wrong.”