The House of Representatives will vote
this week to decide on whether to ask the Federal Government to audit
all the funds it spent on projects in the Niger Delta from 1999 to 2016.....
A motion seeking the audit has been listed against Thursday, this week.
The PUNCH sighted the motion in the Notice Paper for the week, which was released on Monday.
The audit will cover the funds released
to the Niger Delta Development Commission, the Ministry of Niger Delta
and other Federal Government intervention projects in the oil-rich
region.
However, much depends on whether
lawmakers will pass the motion, which is being sponsored by a member
from Edo State, Mr. Johnson Agbonayinma.
Specifically, members are to vote to ask the government to set up a committee to conduct it.
This implies that it is not the House that will directly conduct the audit.
The title of the motion reads, “Call on
the Federal Government to set up an audit committee to conduct an
infrastructure audit of government spending in the Niger Delta region
from 1999 – 2016.”
In 2017, the government budgeted N35.5bn for the Ministry of Niger Delta and another initial N61bn for the NDDC.
Over the years, there have been debates
about the funding of the region and whether budgetary allocations are
being spent judiciously.
A similar motion to be taken by the House on Thursday is to investigate abandoned Federal Government projects in the country.
This too will cover 1999 till date.
It is being moved by a member, Mr. Francis Uduyok.
In 2012, some records indicated that there were around “12,000” abandoned projects across the federation.
In 2016, during a visit to some project
sites in Kaduna, a committee of the House of Representatives put N5tn as
the rough estimate of the abandoned projects in the country.
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