The Nation Newspaper

Tag: allocation

  • PDP to Mimiko: account for 2012 allocation

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State has described the signing of the N152.5 billion 2013 budget by Governor Olusegun Mimiko as “a faulty beginning”.

    It said the House of Assembly should have asked the executive to account for last year’s budget before approving this year’s budget.

    In a statement yesterday by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Wale Ozogoro, PDP said the legislature has abandoned its responsibilities and become the appendage of the executive.

    It said: “We are perturbed that the Appropriation Bill passed through the Assembly without questioning. PDP and Ondo people demand that the Labour Party (LP) administration account for funds that came into the state as federal allocation, derivation fund, Value Added Tax (VAT), loans, donation from international agencies and Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) amounting to over N600 billion in its first term.

    “This excludes the N38 billion left in the treasury by the past adminitration of Dr. Olusegun Agagu. What has this government done with this huge revenue in the last four years?

    “We frown at the high level of fraud and corruption that characterise the LP administration and urge the state government to be accountable, transparent and sensitive to the needs of the people.

    “The government is not only corrupt, it exhibits profligacy in its activities.”

  • Protest rocks ABU over hostel allocation

    There is an uneasy calm at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. Medical students in 400-Level, 500-Level, and 600-Level marched on the university last Wednesday in demonstration of lopsided allocation of hostel rooms. The protesters moved from Shika area and blocked the main gate of the university.

    The demonstration, which started at 9am, lasted for three hours. The students accused the management of insensitivity, saying the authorities did not maintain the tradition of allocating the Aliyu Mustapha Hostel only to medical students. Students of Geology were mixed with the medical students to occupy the medical hall, a move the medical students considered as lack of respect.

    Addressing the protesters, Dr Y. Ahmed, Deputy Dean Students’ Affairs, told the students to remain calm. The Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Prof A. S. Bakari, assured them that the management was looking into their plight, which would result to the Vice-Chancellor meeting the students personally later.

    The students carried placards, which read: “If you don’t treat your doctors well, who will?”, “Aliyu Mustapha Hostel is for medical students”, “If you want to live with medical students, study medicine”.

    The protesters demanded an apology from the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of the Students’ Union, who came to Shika to insult them.

  • Zero allocation for SEC

    Zero allocation for SEC

    The House of Representative made a zero allocation for the Securities and Exchange Committee (SEC) as it passed Budget 2013 Bill yesterday.

    Spokesman of the House Zakari Mohammed said the House took the stance because Director-General of SEC Aruma Oteh has refused to resign as requested by the lawmakers.

    Mohammed spoke why the House hurriedly passed the budget.

    He said: “We went into the executive session particularly to speak with ourselves on the budget and the issues that came up were concerns about the 2012 budget.

    “There were people among us who believed that the 2013 budget should not be passed but at the end of the day, in whose benefit?

    “We then decided that. If we must pass it, it must be with a proviso and that is the roll over of the capital component of the 2012 budget till April 2013. We realized that at this period, the issue of budget becomes very critical because you are susceptible to blackmail.

    “Even things that are consumables can be held up by the Executive on the excuse that the National Assembly did not do certain things, so the budget cannot be implemented.

    “In view of this, we felt that we should speak with ourselves and we resolved that it should be passed, in spite of our misgivings and reservations by the end of the day, let us pass the bulk figure while the details of the sectoral components would be taken head-long as they come”.

    He said the House was not ready to indulge in self deceit that 2012 capital projects have performed well, while noting that the Ministries, Department and Agencies(MDAs) will want to return unspent funds to the Treasury by December 31.

    “This is the scenario that leads to project failure. This is a country where mutual suspicion has been the order of the day but the assurance we have for Nigerians is that what informed our decision is that we know that there could be a general feeling that this budget might go the ways of the 2012 budget but we are putting a condition and that is the 2012 capital component must roll over.

    On the benchmark, he said: “By pegging the benchmark at $79, showed that we have experts in the National Assembly that know what they are doing contrary to the believe of the Executive. When we say it should be $80, we know that it was possible but we had to reach a consensus with the Senate for the present benchmark.”

    He said the National Assembly would not appropriate funds for the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the 2013 because the Executive had not met the legislators’ demand for the removal of the Director General, Oteh.

    In addition, he assured Nigerians that issues of integrity concerning two members, Farouk Lawan (PDP, Kano) and Herman Hembe (PDP, Benue) had not been swept under the carpet.

    While Lawan was involved in an alleged $620,000 bribery scandal with businessman Mr. Femi Otedola, Hembe was accused of corruption by SEC DG, Oteh.

    “It was the budget matter that delayed the presentation of the reports. They are ready and they would be dealt with when we resume from the break,” Mohammed said.

     

  • We must revisit our revenue allocation formular, says Oshiomhole

    We must revisit our revenue allocation formular, says Oshiomhole

    Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole yesterday called for a revisit of the revenue sharing formular.

    The governor noted that the formular would enable states to develop according to their pace.

    He said it is illegal not to revisit the matter, 13 years after democracy was restored.

    Oshiomhole spoke in Nwaniba, Akwa Ibom State, during the Golden Jubilee lecture in honour of Governor Godswill Akpabio.

    He said: “We don’t need all the resources in Nigeria to revisit the revenue mobilisation formular. We must obey the Constitution, which says the revenue formular must be revisited every five years.

    “It is actually illegal that since 1999 – and it is now almost 13 years, in clear breach of the spirit and the letter of the Constitution – the revenue allocation formular has not been revisited. It has to be done.

    “I have argued even last week that Nigeria cannot continue the way it has been going. To service our diversity, we must revisit very quickly the revenue allocation formular. I think what Akpabio has done for the Committee of Governors is to make a bold statement and give the line to those who think that governors are in the states to share, steal.

    “Let them come to Akwa Ibom State and they will change their minds.

    “The truth is that even for the politics of national stability, we need to remove jargons, such as rotation, federal character and all those sentiments that the elites have beaten themselves with in our futile attempt to divert attention from our poverty of the brain, poverty of leadership, set brothers against brothers, Muslims against Christians. This is because they have nothing else to fill their brains with and fire their imagination.

    “If we remove resources from Abuja and leave it to maintain diplomats like the guest speaker today, maintain the Nigerian Army to defend the territorial integrity of our great nation, evolve sensible, time policies that ensure efficient customs that approve those policies, maintain diplomacy and provide all those things that untie us and challenge the state as the agent of development, the story of Nigeria would not be the same again.

    “The more resources we put in Abuja, we just have to revisit how we manage our national resources, so that different parts of the country can develop at their own pace. Those who want to sleep can continue to sleep, whenever they wake up will be their morning.”

    The chairman of the occasion, Justice Alfa Belgore (rtd), noted that if Nigeria should break, it would be the end of the black man in the world.

     

     

     

  • Ijaw seek direct allocation of 13 percent

    Ijaw youths in Delta State have urged the Federal Government to pay the 13 per cent derivation fund to oil bearing communities in the region.

    They threatened to put out “oil flow stations” in their land, unless their demand is met.

    The Delta Ijaw Oil Producing Areas Youth Assembly (DIOPAYA) of Gbaramatu, Egbema and Ogulagha kingdoms were reacting to the dissolution of the board of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC).

    They said the payment of the money to the government favours the development of the state capitals to the detriment of the oil-producing communities.

    DIOPAYA’s President Joseph Wurayai and Secretary Jackson Timiyan, in a statement in Warri, said DESOPADEC, which draws 50 per cent of the derivation fund, failed to make any impact in the oil-producing communities.

    They said: “Consequently, we resolved that the 13 per cent derivation fund should be allocated directly to the oil-producing communities, so as to save them from the overwhelming injustice that is meted out on them.

    “This will allow these communities develop at their own pace and encourage the inhabitants to jealously guard the oil facilities on their land.”