NIGERIA UNDER SIEGE OF CORRUPTION. Senate accuses minister of failure to account for N30b SURE-P funds Posted by: Onyedi Ojiabor, Assistant Editor and Sanni Onogu, Abuja in News 6 hours ago The Senate yesterday accused the Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen for ‘refusing’ to account for N30 billion appropriated for his ministry for Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) projects. Chairman, Committee on SURE-P Senator Abdul Ningi, who made the allegation, threatened that the Senate might be forced to give zero allocation to SURE-P in the 2015 budget. Ningi addressed a news conference in Abuja over the alleged refusal of the minister to appear before his committee to account for the scheme’s funds. He said that members of the committee waited for over two hours for the minister to honour a scheduled meeting without any word from him. Ningi noted that by refusing to appear before the committee to answer questions for his actions, the Minister was clearly undermining President Goodluck Jonathan. He described the minister’s action as “a show of lawlessness and crass ignorance of the law.” He said: “We are all aware that huge sum of money was appropriated to the Ministry of Works to execute SURE-P projects. We sat here from 2pm and we have been waiting to hear from the Minister of Works, Minister of State for Works or even the Permanent Secretary. “The Minister acknowledged receipt of our invitation. We want to tell the person who appointed them that he appointed the wrong people.” Insisting that the action of the Minister is “completely unacceptable” Ningi said that nobody should be allowed to treat the Senate with contempt. He said that the Senate would take every available legal action to take the Minister to the Committee to account for the funds. He said: “They (ministers) are trying to undermine the President and frustrate the country. We cannot take it. They cannot frustrate this committee. It is important that this message be taken to the President that the ministers are undermining him. “Otherwise we can refuse to appropriate funds for the programme in the 2015 budget. This is a programme so many people are asking questions and the minister will not come to say what he is doing with funds appropriated to him. ‘We take very strong exception to the non appearance of the Minister of Works. It is no longer business as usual.” Ningi said that his Committee was also interested to know the beneficiaries of N3,000 said to have been paid to 10,000 youths in each state under SURE-P youth scheme. He said that his committee requested for the list of beneficiaries for more than one month without success. inShare
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 08:01:41 +0000