Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to \u201cdirect the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, and appropriate anti-corruption agencies to investigate ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), and members of the National Assembly suspected to be responsible for inserting N39.5bn for apparently 316 duplicated and mysterious projects in the 2021 budget.\u201d
SERAP said: \u201cAny such investigation should establish whether public funds have been\u00a0mismanaged, diverted or stolen\u00a0in the guise of implementing the duplicated and mysterious projects. Anyone suspected to be responsible should face prosecution as appropriate, if there is sufficient admissible evidence, and any stolen public funds should be fully recovered.\u201d
In the letter dated 8 May 2021, and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said: \u201cThe\u00a0misallocation\u00a0of public funds for duplicated and mysterious projects has seriously undermined the ability of the indicted MDAs, and the government to ensure respect for Nigerians\u2019 human rights through developing and implementing well-thought-out policies, plans, and budgets.\u201d
SERAP also said: \u201cWe are concerned that the\u00a0N39.5bn duplicated and mysterious projects may have been used as a ploy to divert and steal vital resources from MDAs.\u00a0Budget allocations and expenditure ought to be well-suited to ensure access of Nigerians to basic public services, and responsive to the people\u2019s needs in order to prevent corruption or unnecessary or wasteful spending.\u201d
The letter, read in part: \u201cBudgIT had in a report last week stated that there are 316 duplicated capital projects worth N39.5 billion in the 2021 budget. The duplicated and mysterious projects are contained in the 2021 appropriation bill of N13.588 trillion signed into law in December 2020.\u201d
\u201cThese damning revelations suggest a grave violation of the public trust, and Nigerians\u2019 rights to education, health, water, sanitation, and clean and satisfactory environment because the indicted MDAs have misallocated public funds at the expense of the people\u2019s access to basic public services, and enjoyment of rights.\u201d
\u201cSERAP urges you to ask the heads of the MDAs involved to explain why they allegedly failed to ensure strict compliance with constitutional and international standards of transparency and accountability in the preparation, processes and decisions on their budgets, and to return any misallocated public funds to the public treasury.\u201d
\u201cInvestigating and prosecuting any allegations of mismanagement, diversion and stealing of public funds budgeted for the 316 duplicated and mysterious projects would allow your government to use the budget to effectively promote Nigerians\u2019 access to essential public goods and services.\u201d
\u201cIt would also enable your government to meet Nigeria\u2019s human rights obligations in the way the MDAs under your leadership and supervision allocate, spend and audit the budget.\u201d
\u201cPublishing the \u2018implementation status\u2019 of the duplicated and mysterious projects would allow Nigerians to hold their government to account in the spending of public funds. This is particularly true for marginalized and excluded groups, such as people living in poverty, women, children, and persons with disabilities, as the budget has a disproportionate impact on their welfare.\u201d
\u201cWe would be grateful if the recommended measures are taken within 14 days of the receipt and\/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, the Incorporated Trustees of SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel your government to comply with our request in the public interest.\u201d\u00a0
\u201cThe revelations also suggest that the indicted MDAs lack transparent, accountable, effective and credible budgeting processes to prevent and combat corruption.\u00a0SERAP is concerned that the Federal Government has not complied with Nigeria\u2019s obligations under international human rights law.\u201d
\u201cSERAP notes that the budget is government\u2019s most important economic policy document. A carefully and transparently developed, implemented and evaluated budget is central to ensuring access of Nigerians to essential public goods and services, and to the effective realization of all human rights.\u201d
\u201cSERAP also urges you to direct\u00a0Mrs Zainab Ahmed,\u00a0Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning to publish full details of current \u2018implementation status\u2019 of the duplicated and mysterious projects, and any spending on the projects to dated, including the\u00a0115 projects inserted in the budget of the Ministry of Health; the 23 projects inserted in the budget of the Ministry of Education, and 10 projects inserted in the budget of the Ministry of Water Resources.
\u201cThe following ministries are reportedly involved in the duplicated and mysterious projects:\u00a0Ministry of Health with 115 projects; Ministry of Information and Culture with 40 projects; Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with 25 projects;\u00a0Ministry of Education with 23 projects; Ministry of Transportation with 17 projects; and Ministry of Science and Technology with 17 projects.\u201d
\u201cOthers are the Ministry of Environment with 13 projects; Ministry of Power with 11 projects; Ministry of Labour and Employment with 11 projects, and Ministry of Water Resources with 10 projects.\u201d
\u201cAccording to our information, the security sector received N10.02tn between 2015 and 2021 but without details about how the money has been spent. A total of 117 federal agencies received allocations in the 2021 budget for \u201csecurity votes\u201d worth N24.3 billion.\u201d
The letter was copied to Mr Malami; Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, Chairman Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC); Mr Abdulrasheed Bawa, Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); and Mrs Ahmed.
By Serap-nigeria.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to \u201cdirect the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, and appropriate anti-corruption agencies to investigate ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), and members of the National Assembly suspected to be responsible for inserting N39.5bn for apparently 316 duplicated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":31178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[31,3356,351],"class_list":["post-33289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-buhari","tag-duplicated","tag-serap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}