The Forum for Good Governance (FGG) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately begin the process of unbundling the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
Development Diaries understands that the FGG made the call against the backdrop of the ongoing probe of the Northeast Development Commission (NEDC), one of the agencies under the ministry, by the House of Representatives over allegation of mismanagement of N100 billion through a series of frivolous spending.
The forum, in a statement by its convener, Ugochukwu Hanks, noted that, based on the controversy surrounding the ministry, the objective of bringing the social investment programmes under the ministry to ensure efficiency may not be achieved.
Hanks, ‘While it is too early to declare the minister (Sadiya Farouq) and the managing director guilty of the allegations against them, the FGG noted that there have been similar controversies about the management of the Buhari administration’s Social Investment Programme, especially the N-Power and the Home-Grown School Feeding programme.
‘The group recalled the controversies that characterised the implementation of the home-grown programme, even when pupils were not in school recently.
‘While the first and second batch volunteers of the N-Power programme have been complaining that their allowances have not been paid even as they are being disengaged, the process of enrolment of new intakes have also been marred by controversies and alleged corruption.
‘It is, therefore, clear that if the objective of bringing the social investment programmes under the ministry was to ensure efficiency, that goal is far from being achieved.
‘There are also insinuations that the ministry is virtually running the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which should be under the supervision of the office of the Vice President statutorily.
‘Stripping the vice president of the powers to supervise NEMA, the National Boundary Commission (NBC) and other agencies is a clear violation of the laws establishing the agencies and the Nigerian constitution’.
The civil society organisation also noted that those who conceived and championed the creation of the ministry did not properly consider the organisational structure, especially the status of the heads of MDAs now mandated to be reporting to the ministry.
However, in her reaction to the allegations, the head of the ministry, Farouq, had said that allegations of daily expense running into millions and billions of naira were false information disseminated by rumour mongers intent on distracting the ministry from achieving its mandate of providing ‘humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable, help with the mitigation of disasters while establishing social safety nets that help us build resilience for the future’.
Source: THISDAY
Photo source: US Institute of Peace
