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Tag: ministries

  • Human Trafficking: Obaseki seeks home-grown solution

    Human Trafficking: Obaseki seeks home-grown solution

    …Sets up Task Force

     

    The Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, on Tuesday inaugurated the State Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, a measure that will proffer a new set of home-grown solutions to the age-long social problem.

    Obaseki lamented that the state was fast becoming synonymous with human trafficking and charged the taskforce to urgently redeem the state’s image as Edo people do not want to be associated with the stigma any more.

    The new measure according to him, would complement the efforts of the federal government through the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons (NAPTIP) and other international organizations involved in the fight against human trafficking.

    “It is has been suggested that a special court be established in the state to prosecute perpetrators. We are losing our young people to this negative trend and we must make human trafficking a thing of the past in the state,” the governor said.

    He charged the task force made up of representatives of security agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), NAPTIP, Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, religious and traditional institutions, to come up with modalities on how to domesticate the federal government’s law on trafficking in the state.

    The taskforce was also charged to come up with a comprehensive action plan for combating trafficking in persons as well as programmes that will help in reintegrating victims of the illicit trade into the society.

    In her remarks, the Chairman of the task force, Professor Yinka Omorogbe, who is also the Attorney General of the state, commended the governor for the initiative and said that it would bring an end to the problem, with the cooperation and support of all members of the society.

    She assured that members of the taskforce would live up to the confidence reposed on them and pledged that a working document would be ready within the six-week period given to them.

  • FG warns Security Agencies against flouting Executive Order

    FG warns Security Agencies against flouting Executive Order

    The Federal Government Thursday warned all security agencies in the country against flouting its Executive Order which directed Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government (MDAs) to give priority to local industries in their procurement.

    The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Ambassador Danjuma Sheni, sounded the warning at the first army seminar on procurement with the theme,”Enhancing Nigerian Operations Through Effective Procurement System”.

    Sheni who spoke at the Nigerian Army Resource Centre, Mambilla Barracks, Abuja, said the federal government had recently prohibited officers of other cadres from the procurement functions, noting that the seminar was quite timely for the Nigerian Army and the services in building the capacity of its procurement cadre.

    The Permanent Secretary, represented by Director Procurement in the ministry, Engr. Michael Chukuma, said before the current government took over office in May, 2015, defence procurement process were ad-hoc and unpredictable which led to the setting up of the presidential committee on the Audit of Defence Equipment Procurement from 2007-2015.

    He said :”I will like to place on record that with the able leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, the procurement procedures in the ministry and indeed the services are now re-organised and designed to follow due process in line with the provision of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 and other government directives,”

    The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai who was represented by Chief of Policy and Plans, Maj Gen Chris Jemitola said when they were appointed in July, 2015 that there were serious allegations against the Nigerian Army in its procurement of its platforms and logistics.

    Buratai noted that they had to streamline the procurement process in line with the public procurement Act, 2007 to international best practices and other sundry government policies relating to procurement.

    According to him the army’s equipment profile has tremendously improved and as can be noticed in our recorded successes in various operations especially in operation Lafiya Dole.

    “This is to keep up with President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration determination to stamp out corruption and irregularities in the Nigerian public service and other areas.

    “Our approach to procurement in army headquarters has made a real difference to our operations across the nation and peace support operations outside the country,” he said.

  • Unite against flooding, Assembly urges ministries

    The Lagos State House of Assembly has urged the state Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Urban Planning and Physical Development to join forces against flooding.

    This was part of its resolution yesterday sequel to a motion by Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu and 10 other lawmakers.

    The House advised Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to direct the ministries to remove structures that are blocking drainages.

    They urged the ministries to ensure that canals and drainages are dredged and de-silted regularly.

    The state government was also urged to comply with the state masterplan especially for Lekki.

    It was also tasked to create a rescue team for any emergency as well as ensure cooperation amongst the relevant ministries in motoring infractions of environmental laws.

    The Ministry of the Environment in particular was urged to publicise state emergency lines 767 and 112, for people to know what number to call during emergencies.

    Addressing the lawmakers earlier, Commissioner for Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare blamed the flood on natural and human causes.

    According to him, “natural cause comes in form of climate change, and this affected places such as London, Suleja and other places. There was high tide at the sea that made the level of the water to rise.

    “The flood affected places such as Lekki, Victoria Island and Lekki-Epe Expressway. But the water receded within 12 hours. We have been embarking on tree planting to reduce climate change in the state.

    “Man-made is caused by people, who build houses on drainages. We saw people sand-filling to build houses on Osborne Phase 2. People also build houses by the Lagoon against the law,” he said.

    Adejare said further that there are illegal dredging all over the state and that machineries have been put in place to correct all these, adding that drainages channel water to the Lagoon but when they are blocked the water comes back.

    He said that the ministry does massive clearing of drainages before, during and after rainy season.

    The commissioner stressed that it would take time before drainages are properly cleared, and that a lot of advocacy is being done through the print and electronic media to inform the people about the need to prevent flooding in the state.

     

     

  • How public servants collected salaries from four ministries, by ICPC Chairman

    How public servants collected salaries from four ministries, by ICPC Chairman

    •Nta advises auditors, accountants on anti-graft battle

    Some public servants allegedly collected salaries from four Federal ministries by outsmarting the Federal Government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

    The Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Ekpo Nta broke the news yesterday at a three-day anti-corruption and fraud prevention training organised by the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria (ACAN).

    ACAN is a research and training arm of the ICPC in Keffi, Nasarawa State.

    The ICPC Chairman said as a result, the commission had partnered with Office of the Auditor General, Office of the Accountant General and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to monitor and execute corruption risks assessment on the various electronic-governance platforms.

    According to him, prior to the e-governance platforms, government organisations required signatures of 12 persons at different levels before monies were disbursed, but due to the e-governance platform, it had been trimmed, thus the final signatory could outsmart other few officials in the system.

    However, he called for a review of the payment system for better effectiveness.

    His words: “It has been done on pension platform; it has been done on IPPIS platforms, where you find one person collecting salaries in four different ministries. People would have gone home to sleep that IPPIS is the answer to our problem. No, it is not. We must keep fine-tuning. I keep saying, where the accountants and auditors end their functions is where ICPC starts.

    “A typical anti-corruption approach will be let’s wait for people to take money or abuse that system, begins to make arrests and it all goes on the front-pages of newspapers but what we do in ICPC that might not be on front-pages of newspapers is by running corruption risk assessments of all e-government platforms,”

    Provost of the academy, Prof. Sola Akinrinade, said the fight against  corruption must spread across all level of governments, if the Federal Government must succeed in its anti-corruption campaign.

    He noted that relevant stakeholders, including state and local governments, should complement efforts of the present administration.

    Akinrinade, who was represented by his deputy, Mr. Mathew Ameh, said the anti-corruption and fraud prevention training was organised for state commissioners for finance and auditors to build their capacity  on issues relating to finance and to entrench accountability and probity in their operations.

    He added that it was important to extend government efforts to the states and expand the advocacy against corrupt practices.

  • Mortein, ministries join forces against malaria

    Mortein, ministries join forces against malaria

    General Manager, Reckitt Benckiser Nigeria/West Africa, makers of Mortein  insecticide, Mr. Rahul Murgai, has said community engagement is the best way to eliminate malaria.

    He said that was why his company was collaborating through its consumer engagement activities to stem the prevalence of malaria in Nigeria and Africa. He said the partnership with states and Federal Government, which has been on-going for years, also demonstrated the company’s commitment to the anti-malaria fight in Nigeria.

    He said:“At Reckitt Benckiser, our global vision is to have a world where people are healthier and live better. In achieving this, we will continue to make a difference by giving people innovative solutions for healthier lives and happier homes. We know that regular combined interventions of Long Lasting Insecticide Nets (LLINs), Larviciding and insecticide use like Mortein is the solution to achieving a malaria-free Nigeria.  Therefore, to protect our children and ourselves from getting sick, the first thing to do is to educate ourselves about prevention.”

    “That is why going with the global theme: One Act Against Malaria” RB has joined forces with the Lagos, Ogun and Abia state governments and the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) Abuja, to upscale action for the elimination of malaria in Nigeria through community engagement, continued investment and sustained efforts. We localised ours to be: theme: One Act Against Malaria,” said Murgai.

    The company’s Marketing Director, West Africa, Leferink Aliza, said:“Through the grassroots community engagement, we educate communities on the importance of hygiene, and how the simple habit of maintaining clean surroundings and drainages can significantly help to reduce malaria.

    According to Aliza, there are an estimated 100 million malaria cases with over 300,000 deaths yearly in Nigeria, mostly among children under the age of five. “Malaria is preventable and we have made it our fight to educate on how to protect the most vulnerable – pregnant women and children and their families against Malaria. This has also leveraged the Clean Healthy Naija programme which RB is leading across various platforms especially for preventable diseases’’.

    Reiterating Mortein’s commitment to eradicating malaria, Marketing Manager, Mortein, Reckitt Benckiser West Africa, Bamigbaiye-Elatuyi Omotola, said Mortein has been at the forefront of the fight against malaria in Nigeria.

    “In the past few years, Mortein has partnered with the Federal Ministry of Health through the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP), Lagos State Ministry of Health (LSMOH) and various state ministries of health to foster education on malaria prevention via TV infomercials, Education at primary healthcare centres and the Mortein Own a Community Project which has been well executed across all LGA’s in Lagos State. We intend to take this a step further by having doctors in markets to do free Malaria test and consultation in cities of high prevalence across the country.

    Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole said this year’s campaign aims at drawing significant attention to the need to totally eradicate the malaria scourge in the country.

    He commended Mortein for its work and continuous support in the fight against malaria through its collaboration with the government. He therefore pledged the Federal government’s commitment to work with RB/ Mortein to ensure total eradication of malaria in the country by imploring everyone to do acts against malaria in their community.

    The Commissioners for health in Lagos, Ogun and Abia States also commended Mortein for teaming up with their respective State governments in the fight against malaria.

  • FG eases documentation procedures at seaports

    The Federal Government, through the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), has approved the reduction of documentation procedures of imports and exports in Nigerian ports.

    Mr Anthony Ayalogu, a Deputy Comptroller of Customs and Desk Officer in charge of Ease of Doing Business, disclosed this at a two-day sensitisation workshop on Ease of Doing Business Reform held on Thursday in Ikeja, Lagos.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop is meant to help improve Nigeria’s ranking in the World Bank’s Doing Business Index in 2018.

    Ayalogu explained that documentation of imports had reduced from 14 to eight stages, while export documentation had reduced from 10 to seven.

    According to him, Cargo Release Order, Manufacturers’ Certificate of Production, Payment Receipt of Customs Fee; among others, have been removed from documentation.

    Ayalogu said the new imports and exports procedures include: palletising all containerised consignments coming into Nigeria for easy clearance.

    He said: “Used spare parts must be packed in cases and the cases would be packed in pallets.

    “The packing list of the containers must be itemised as the goods are arranged in the containers.

    “Vehicles imports should have the complete 17 digits Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) inscribed on the Bill of Lading. All form `M’ goods should have the Form `M’ number stated on the Bill of Lading.

    “All diplomatic goods should be indicated on the Bill of Lading,’’ he said.

    Dr Jumoke Oduwole, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, had earlier said trading across borders involved obtaining credits, paying taxes and having access to electricity supply.

    According to her, these are key indices of the reforms initiated by PEBEC.

    Oduwole said the reform was basically to transform Nigeria to a progressive and easier place of doing business and to move the country 20 steps ahead in ranking in terms of ease of doing business.

    She also said that PEBEC had implemented an upgrade of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) online portal to ensure document upload capabilities.

    Oduwole said this would create room for new businesses to be fully registered online without having to visit the CAC office.

    “The PEBEC is supported by a small-scale task force responsible for driving the reform agenda and ensuring implementation across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

    “Nigeria ranked 169 out of 190 on Doing Business Ranking of the World Bank. In trading across borders, is a worse indicator as Nigeria ranks 182 out of 190.

    “This administration has taken it upon itself to work with government agencies to introduce palletised containers of imports,’’ Oduwole said.

    She said that the whole idea is to make business more convenient for processing of both exports and imports.

    Mr Sule Alu, an Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs in charge of Tariffs and Trade, said the forum was meant to improve Customs mandate on trade facilitation.

    Alu said that the idea of the reform was to engage stakeholders in the operations of “Ease of Doing Business’’.

    He said that the reform was a holistic approach which needed everyone’s participation for government to achieve its mandate of reducing the time of doing business at the ports.

    Also speaking, the Customs Area Comptroller, Tin-Can Island Customs Command, Comptroller Umar Bashar, urged both Customs officers and stakeholders to continue to display transparency in cargo clearance processes.

    Bashar said that before now, cargo were palletised but now nobody cares about how the cargo would be processed until the consignments were damaged before getting to the ports of destination.

    “We are giving opportunities to the shipping companies to just dump cargo in Nigerian ports because we do not care about world best practices.

    “Ease of Doing Business is all about transparency, integrity of data and having the love of the country at heart,’’ Bashar said.

    The controller, however, implored stakeholders to improve on training in order to spend less time on cargo clearance.

     

  • 2017 budget: Senate gives ministers, others two day ultimatum

    2017 budget: Senate gives ministers, others two day ultimatum

    …Defaulting MDAs to receive zero capital allocations

     

    The Senate Wednesday gave ministers and heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) a two day ultimatum to appear before its relevant committees to defend their agencies’ 2017 budgets.

    The upper chamber warned that recalcitrant ministers and heads of MDAs who failed to appear within Thursday and Friday would have themselves to blame as their agencies would receive zero capital allocations.

    The ultimatum is coming even as the Senate suspended plenary till Tuesday to allow affected MDAs to appear before its committees.

    Senate Leader, Senator Ahmed Lawan, who moved the motion to suspend plenary noted that the leadership of the Senate had been informed that some heads of MDAs failed to appear to defend their agencies’ budgets.

    Lawn said that the Senate would have no other option than to pass the budget without considering the budget of any MDA that failed to defend its budget.

    The Senate Leader noted that it was discovered that there were issues pending to be resolved with some MDAs.

    Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, who underscored the implications of what Lawan said insisted that heads of MDAs must defend their budget on or before Friday.

    Saraki noted that the Senate would not allow few individuals to hold the country to ransom by flagrantly failing to honour invitations from committees.

    He said that the extension of the budget defence session would affect the earlier date scheduled by the National Assembly to pass the 2017 budget.

    The Senate President said that the National Assembly has set the second week of March as the new target to pass the budget.

    Saraki said: “The plenary has been suspended till next week to allow the committees to complete the budget defence. From the meeting we had on Tuesday, it shows that a number of ministers and chief executives of MDAs have not come to make their budget defence and we are going to give them today and tomorrow to do that.

    “Any minister or head of agency that does not do that by Friday, we are not going to keep this open and hold the country to ransom because of a few people. We have already lost a week because we should have finished this by end of last week and start receiving reports.

    “This is a final warning to all those required to ensure that unfailingly by today or tomorrow, they should appear before the committees. After that, the committees are allowed to do as they wish on their budgets.”

    Saraki also said that the leadership of the Senate would meet with the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo yesterday to resolve grey areas in the budget.

    He said, “Those who are meant to re-submit certain corrections should do that by the end of Friday. It is our hope that by next week, all reports should have been submitted to the Appropriation Committee and for them to start receiving the reports for those that have completed their work. It is very important that this is done.

    “The leadership will also be meeting with the Acting President this evening (yesterday) to try and iron out these issues. This is because we are determined that we must pass this budget within the second week of March. That is our target. So, we hope that this meeting will also help to speed up some of these discrepancies and clear them.”

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Abdullahi Sabi, warned that heads of MDAs who failed to appear before the committees will have zero capital budget allocations.

    On Tuesday, standing committee chairmen were in a closed session with the leadership of the Senate to brief on the budget defence.

    It was learnt that the committee chairmen complained bitterly about the uncooperative attitude of some ministers and heads of agencies.

    The chairmen were also said to have pointed out inconsistencies in the 2017 budget document.

    It was learnt that the lawmakers demanded breakdown of the N500 billion voted as intervention funds.

    The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, was named as one of those who failed to appear before the committee to defend the budgets of his ministry.

    The Director General of Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) was also said to have failed to appear to defend the budget of the corporation.

    Other issues raised were alleged ‘phoney’ proposals including fake budgets for items such as computers, funds for maintenance of generators and other proposals and items said to have been duplicated.

  • N450bn unremitted revenue: FG recovers additional N793 million from MDAs

    N450bn unremitted revenue: FG recovers additional N793 million from MDAs

    An additional N793 million unremitted operating surpluses from three revenue generating agencies has been recovered by the Federal Government from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) accused of short-changing the government.

    This was announced in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja by the Director of Information, Federal Ministry of Finance, Salisu Dambatta.

    According to the statement, this is thanks to the Recovery Committee set up two weeks ago by the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun.

    The Committee was tasked to recover unremitted N450 billion operating surpluses from Federal revenue-generating Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

    The surpluses are legally classified as a Federal Treasury Revenue.

    The Committee immediately swung into action by issuing demand notices to 17 of the initial 33 affected Agencies, out of which it met with 10.

    They included the National Shippers Council, Nigeria Export Promotion Council, National Health Insurance Scheme, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority and the Nigeria Communication Commission.

    The rest were Nigeria Postal Service, National Pension Commission, Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company, Raw Materials Research and Development Council and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria.

    According to the statement, the recoveries, totalling N793 million, were made from the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), N278 million; Nigeria Shippers Council, N407 million and Nigeria Export Promotion Council, N108 million.

    “So far, the cumulative total amount recovered is N1.44 billion, given the earlier recovery of N650 million from the Nigeria Shippers Council.

    “Several other agencies were in the process of submitting repayment plan for approval.

    Meanwhile, four agencies that were unable to make it to the meeting due to short notice have been rescheduled to appear before the Recovery Committee.

    “They are the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Pensions Commission (PENCOM), Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA),” it stated.

    The Minister of Finance announced recently that many revenue generating Federal Government agencies have not remitted the operating surpluses from the revenues they generated totalling N450 billion from 2010 to date.

    The agencies are required to pay the operating surpluses to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federal Government not later than one month following the statutory deadline for publishing each
    corporation’s account as provided in the Fiscal
    Responsibility Commission Act 2007.

  • 2017 budget: FG orders MDAs to submit budget through web portal 

    2017 budget: FG orders MDAs to submit budget through web portal 

    As the 2017 budget preparations kicks off, all Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) of government have been directed to submit their budgets to a designated web portal domiciled in Budget Office.

    This is a departure from the old practice of MDAs submitting their annual budgets through flash drive to the Budget office. This new development is to avoid hitches of 2016 budget creeping in to next year’s budget while the budget office will review it on line and send it back on line after corrections have been effected.

    This disclosure was made by the Minister of state in the Budget Ministry, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed Thursday in Abuja. The new process of submitting budget by MDAs, the minister added, was designed to limit human interface and ensure better quality 2017 budget.

    She also disclosed that the federal government has achieved 41.25% in 2016 budget implementation as of October 2016 with a total disbursement of N2.5 trillion.

    Speaking in an interview with financial journalists in Abuja at the 2nd presidential economic communications workshop, the Minister also confirmed that the 2017 budget is ready but the executive is waiting for the approval of Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) currently in the custody of the National Assembly for approval.

    According to her, “we planned 2017 budget very carefully by putting in place an IT system that minimizes human interface in the budget process to make 2017 Budget a very high quality budget. We now have a web portal where by ministries prepares their  budget and submits on line and the budget office reviews it on line and send back via  online where corrections would be made. This will reduce significantly the human interface to ensure we have a high quality budget.”

    She said the executive arm was ready with 2017 budget, but   waiting for the National Assembly’s approval of MTEF before   its submission   to the National Assembly.

    With regards to the current budget, the minister said the 2016 has been very challenging to the federal government in terms of revenue receipt and budget implementation.

    According to her, “it’s been very challenging for us. Apart from the fact that we are in recession, we have some of our people facing humanitarian crisis in the North East.  The Niger Delta crisis has pruned down revenue from oil and gas. We have a lot of projects that we planned to do but the revenue yield is not as we projected in the budget and this is largely due to vandalism of major oil infrastructures in  Niger Delta region.  We have minimal revenue but we have a lot of plans to share and allocate resources”, said Mrs. Ahmed.

    On what has been disbursed from the 2016 budget, she said the, federal government has released about N2.5 trillion of N6.06 trillion 2016 budget. Of the releases, she said N753 billion is for capital projects, a significant portion of which was devoted to infrastructure and related projects. N108 billion for overheads, N117 billion as statutory transfers, N142 billion for Consolidated pension, N1.2 trillion for personnel and N135 billion for service wide.

    The minister also revealed that, the government is currently developing a National Economic Recovery plan covering 2017- 2020.  The plan, she said would guide preparation of annual budgets and guide the Economic Management Team and budgeting process over short term to medium term.

     

  • 2016 Budget: Finance Ministry makes public capital releases

    2016 Budget: Finance Ministry makes public capital releases

    The federal Ministry of finance has released details of its capital funding for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) with N 753,633,667,464 from the 2016 budget allocation.

    According to the breakdown, the ministry of power got the largest share with N209,246,760,165,  defence has so far received N69,512,363,730, transport N30,540,042,428; AGRICULTURE N29,578,929,050; WATER RESOURCES N25,201,857,951; INTERIOR N21,210,059,596; HEALTH N18,472,539,524;
    EDUCATION N16,743,672,981; NIGER DELTA N8,161,196,486; SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY N6,681,349,721; MINES & STEEL N3,360,000,000; PETROLEUM N2,413,847,044 and others N312,511,048,789.
    In the 2016 budget, the federal government projected to spend 1.8 trillion Naira or 30% of total N6.06 trillion budget on Capital Expenditure. What yesterday’s breakdown shows is that government is working to meet at least 50% releases for capital  projects.