Tochukwu Chukwu
The Deputy Minority leader, House of Representatives, Toby Okechukwu, has urged the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Retd) to understand the needs of Nigerians before the application of resources.
Speaking During 2021 Budget defence at Plenary Session, Okechukwu questioned the proposed Budget of the Federation for the year 2021.
The Budget of the year, 2014, was #4.6 trillion, while the Proposed 2021 budget is #13 trillion, which due to the escalating exchange rate, both amounts to not less that 30 billion, a situation, he tagged “Motion without movement”.
“In 2014, the budget of the federation was 4.6 trillion today the budget of this Federation is 13 trillion but when you compare, given the exchange rate, they all boil down to about 30 billion.
“This means, he has done a lot of motion without movement. The provision for subsidy in 2014 was 268 billion. I appreciate the efforts to Christian and baptized this budget as,” budget of recovery and resilience”, but we have not been told what has been spent on subsidy and under recovery for the past 4 years. No matter what name you give it Parliament needs to know, what extent that has been ploughed into 2021 budget, the recoveries that has been made by the deregulation.”, Okechukwu queried.
Addressing the inconsistency of the remitting of 25% of the revenue accrued from the various Parastatals and Agencies of the Federal Government as well as the inadequacies tied to it, he said,
“it is important for us to know that the Committee on Finance did a thorough work regarding some leakages with regards to agencies of government.”
“Some of them are remitting 25% Since it is the policy, some are not remitting at all. In our very eyes, there are lots of expenditure being done by parastatals and agencies of government.
“I’ll take one, it is on record that the CBN has spent a whole lot of money in various interventions, close to running a parallel government without appropriation.
“If they have autonomy that allows them to trade with some of the money is in their custody, they should be prudent to report to Parliament, what they have made.
“I wish that parliament can guide them and provide appropriate information with regards to what our constituents want. These various interventions, as at today’s federal ministry of works is owing about 300 billion of liabilities, which is work done, We also have interventions that are so passive.
“What if the CBN take Some part of trillions of intervention give to the Federal Ministry of Works as a means of intervention, to provide Nigerians with good roads, also to offset the liabilities, giving an appropriate framework to pay back that money. This will be a country working”
“Even the 25% that is meant to be remitted, The CBN is not remitting. The chairman of the Finance Committee has a point of order in this direction to affirm or not affirm this story but they are not remitting”.
“These Rail lines from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri and the one from Lagos to Kano were commenced and envisioned on the same day and that was in 1913, they were done for Economic reasons,” he stated.
“If there is any rail to be done in this country, they are those ones because, they touch all the arteries of this country. They will affect fundamentally, the insurgency that we have in the northeast, the agitation in the middle-belt, the South-South and the South East.
“I have no doubt that when the rail from Lagos to Kano is completed, it will address some of the challenges we have such as the banditry, because our young people will be gainfully engaged.
“So I want adequate attention paid to these two rail lines. Mr President must also watch and see those whom he is working with, as regards the application of resources. If we are supposed to be doing rails, we should not be doing fencing. We must have to subject these things to scrutiny.”
“The story of Ajeokuta, if we don’t overcome it, we are just children of Sisyphus, Condemned to a recurrent cycle of monotonous perdition, The infrastructural bill should be adequately considered.”
Reminiscing about his younger years plying the rail routes of Nigeria, the lawmaker said, “As a young man in primary school, I used to go from Enugu to Zaria by Rail, then, from zaria I will transport by road to Dutsema, which is in present day katsina state”,
“Mr Speaker, if we don’t overcome the issue of rail by having a Focus to these Two primary networks, the most pertinent economic corridors, which are, the Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, the Lagos to Kano rail lines, we might continue going in circles.
“Infrastructures should be key with any intervention that we have to do,” he said.
“If we don’t devote some money to Nigerian roads, we will find out that contracts will run for 20 years. You will finish kilometre zero, by the time it gets to the fifth or seventh year and on reaching the kilometre 20, the kilometre zero or one would have developed potholes.
“If there is any intervention that has to be done, we should pay attention to the road infrastructure in this country and the Enabling framework for tuning them, provision for the returning of Loan facilities made available for road maintenance, should be made.” He Concluded.
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