Nigeria;s finance minister Kemi Adeosun and the country's acting president Yemi Osinbajo at the 2nd Presidential Quarterly Business Forum in Abuja on Monday, January 23, 2017
•Investigate ministry’s withdrawal of N1b from NITDA
The House of Representatives yesterday ordered the immediate probe of the office of the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo for allegedly politicising the Federal Government’s social intervention scheme.
Adopting the motion sponsored by Mr. Mark Gbillah (PDP, Benue), the lawmakers also ordered the Ministry of Finance, headed by Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and that of Budget and Planning, headed by Udoma Udo Udoma to be probed.
Also to be investigated are state coordinators and stakeholders involved in managing the scheme. The House Committees on Finance and Poverty Alleviation was mandated to ascertain the method of identification and selection of beneficiaries, alleged non-involvement of critical stakeholders and a confirmation of the identities of beneficiaries of the scheme.
The plenary, which was presided over by Speaker Yakubu Dogara urged the committee to report to the House within four weeks. Gbillah alleged that the decision to cede the scheme’s implementation had resulted in the nomination of beneficiaries who were loyal party members and some state governments.
He said that that decision had excluded other people who were genuinely in need of the intervention. The projects involved in the social intervention schemes are Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), Homegrown School Feeding Programme, Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) and the N-Power.
According to the lawmaker, the criteria used in identifying and selecting the beneficiaries had political undertones. The lawmaker stressed that it was important to protect the interests of all Nigerians, irrespective of their party affiliation.
Gbillah explained that the schemes included a conditional cash transfer (CCT) of N5000, which would be augmented by the World Bank, with an additional N5000 to be paid monthly to one million Nigerians and the GEEP.
He said the amount was a loan scheme of N10, 000 to N100, 000 for market women, artisans, small businesses and the unemployed youths. Also, the House has mandated its Committee on Information Technology and Finance to investigate the alleged withdrawal of N1billion from the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)’s accounts, based on Adeosun’s directives.
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