The
National Economic Council (NEC) rose from its meeting in Abuja last month with
a resolution that states and local governments would henceforth keep their
share of the national resource and ecological funds. The governor of Anambra
State, Mr Willie Obinao, said the 36 states and 774 local governments in the
country would begin to deploy their allocations to meeting ecological
challenges. With many states in the South-east and South-South ravaged by
erosion while many in the North threatened by desert encroachment, we hope that
the special fund will indeed begin to serve the purpose for which it was
created.
At
a period the forces of nature are raging and Nigeria seems to be at the mercy
of the environment, the NEC resolution was indeed very timely. But it would
require strict regulation and even stricter monitoring to stop what has become
a gross misuse of the several billions of naira going into the fund annually
from two per cent of the monthly allocations of the Federation Account and
another one per cent from the derivation account.
Without
much oversight, officials of both the federal and state governments have for
several years seen the ecology fund essentially as a slush fund to be deployed
for all manner of things. The most glaring example was the disclosure in 2006
by the former Governor of Plateau State, Mr Joshua Dariye, that he diverted his
state’s N1.6 billion share of the ecological fund to the 2003 general elections
campaign of then the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
From
available records, the federal and state governments have reportedly misused
about N500 billion meant for redressing ecological problems in the last 15
years, most of it spent buying vehicles and servicing other dubious projects. A
Senate committee once uncovered a litany of misdeeds in the application of the
funds which included N154.9bn on projects not related to the environment.
In
2002, the fund disbursed N928 million for non-ecological projects, just as
N728m was given as a grant to the Presidential Research and Communication Unit.
In 2003, N1.9bn also went to non-ecological programmes out of which N800m was
given to the Ministry of Aviation for the renovation of the Aminu Kano Airport
and N150m to Kaduna State Government to manage sectarian crisis in the state.
The sum of N2.1bn went to non-ecological expenditures in 2004 and N2.77bn was
spent in 2005.
In
2006, a total of N16bn was spent as grants to Yobe and Ogun States for road constructions
while in 2007, N24bn was spent on the rehabilitation of the Shagamu expressway
by the Ministry of Works. In 2008, the
sum of N5.7bn was advanced to the Ministry of Agriculture to fight food
shortages which was said to be imminent at the time. In 2009, a total of
N44.9bn was spent by the federal government to fund its third quarter spending
warrant while in 2010, N34.6bn was withdrawn from the fund for “treasury
management” by the federal government. In 2013, N22bn was withdrawn and shared
out to some states and local governments, while N2.078bn was withdrawn towards
the building of the Second Niger Bridge, although there is nothing on ground to
justify the purported expenses.
Ref: ThisDay
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