₦airaland Forum

HungerBAD:
N288.6 billion?

Jesus Christ, Holy Mother Of God, Jesu Kristi, Jehovah, God, Samson, Goliath, Sango, Oghene, Allah,Chinekeeeeee.

abuchilag:
wow....I didn't know that Abacha served under Jonathan's regime.

...including $220m

tchimatic:
Wat abt her cucumber story....


Hope there won't be any scandal this tym Wat abt her cucumber story....


Hope there won't be any scandal this tym

Khd95:
How are we sure dis one has not fvcked cucumba too ehn

kokosin:
Miss Anambra again?

Over half of this year’s capital projections have failed due to shortfall in expected revenue, the Federal Government revealed yesterday.

The Federal Government budgeted about N1.8 trillion for capital projects in 2016 but only N753.6 billion was released as at October, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma said yesterday.

Government had expected that the N6.06 trillion budget would help reflate the economy but it suffered setback due to several factors.

Presenting the 2017 budget details yesterday, Udoma said pipeline vandalism and militancy in the Niger Delta as well as low global crude oil prices affected the implementation of the 2016 budget.

He said the 2016 budget, which was predicated on oil production of 2.2 million barrels per day with 38 dollars per barrel and exchange rate of N197 to a dollar, fell short of all revenue projections.

The minister said the budget did not benefit much from the slight excess revenue from increase in global crude oil prices above government’s projection, as militant activities forced down daily outputs.

Udoma said: “The Federal Government’s 2016 revenues have been low because of the sharp decline in oil production. In particular, the revenue target for January to September 2016 was N2.8 trillion as against N2.2 trillion realised during the period.

“The projected independent revenue was N1.1 trillion as against N0.2 trillion realised during the period. The projected revenue for Custom was N0.3 trillion as against N0.2 trillion realised. The projected non-oil tax receipts for the first to third quarter of 2016 is N0.8 trillion and only N0.5 trillion was realised.”

To support funding of the 2017 budget, the minister said President Muhammadu Buhari had set up a cabinet committee that would devise innovative and creative ways to raise additional revenues from the oil and other sectors.

He said the report of the committee would be ready in time for the National Assembly to take into account in considering the budget in 2017.

“We must maximise the resources we can generate from the oil and gas sector. We cannot determine the price of crude oil, but we can engage more extensively with the communities and people of the Niger Delta to minimise disruptions to oil production,” he stated.

He said in order to get out of the current recession, the government must find the resources to spend on infrastructure and reflating the economy.

According to him, “This spending will help to stimulate and attract the private sector capital and spending. This is what the 2017 budget proposals seek to do.

“We should not allow ourselves to be discouraged by those who say we can’t find the money to fund the spending required to implement this budget.”

He said government would challenge revenue generating agencies, especially the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigerian Customs Service to improve their efficiency and broaden their reach so as to achieve the targets set for them in the 2017 budget.

He also stated that new guidelines and templates would be issued for computing the operating surpluses of the various government agencies to achieve the target set for independent revenues.

The minister also disclosed that the federal government had budgeted N185 billion for what he called new initiatives for 2017.

According to him, the initiatives will support economic diversification and inclusion in the government’s growth drive.

He listed them as including N100bn for a new social housing programme, N50 billion for special economic zone projects to be set up in each of the geo-political zones to drive manufacturing/exports, N20bn for the revival of export-expansion grant in form of tax credit and N15bn for recapitalisation of the Bank of Industry and the Bank of Agriculture.

Also, the Federal Government disclosed that it had so far recovered a total of N288.6 billion stolen funds.

The Director-General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze disclosed this to journalists yesterday while fielding questions during the public presentation of the 2017 budget proposals. Akabueze confirmed that the recovered loots formed part of the funding of the 2017 budget proposal.

According to him, the recovered loots “include N97.6bn which is equivalent of ‎$220m expected from the Swiss, part of what is called the Abacha loot recovery.

“Then, it also includes N72bn that has already been received in recent cases of loot recovery.

“And a balance of N90bn other expected recoveries that are at an advanced and reasonable stage that we feel comfortable and confident that they would come through in 2017 and so they have been reflected in the budget.”

Udoma said the National Assembly had the updated 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).

“And they (the National Assembly) have the budget. So, everything is with them. So, they will determine how they treat it.

“I am sure the sequence will be they do the MTEF before they do the budget. But everything is with the National Assembly,” the minister said.

sarrki:
Jack is a great guy

He knows his onions

Atiku2019:
Must you Wail? Please Baba is Fighting Corruption; D

psucc:
It is now evident that Buhari anticorruption fight is a ruse.

Would he have waited so long had it been any member of the opposition party was named?

There is no doubt that President Muhammadu Buhari is at cross roads as a result of last week’s resolution by the Senate, urging the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Babachir Lawal, to resign from office, as well as the call on relevant authorities to immediately prosecute him.

This resolution was made on Wednesday December 14. And as if that was not enough, the apex legislative chamber, the following day, Thursday December 15, reiterated its call that Lawal must go and even called on President Buhari to sack him for alleged North-East Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) contract fraud and abuse of office.

Lawal’s trouble started when the ad-hoc committee on the North East Humanitarian Crisis reported to the Red Chamber that the SGF was involved in contracts award and execution, intended to alleviate the sufferings of the IDPs.

The committee’s report showed that it was not just that he participated in the contract award and execution that landed him into the Senate trap but the fact that one of them was allegedly carried out with a lot of fraudulent motives, and it was linked to a company belonging to him.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Shehu Sani, while presenting the report of the committee to the Senate in plenary, said that some of the contracts were awarded to companies belonging to highly placed government officials, cronies and family members.

The Senate had earlier mandated the committee to investigate the crisis situation in the insurgency ravaged North-East, particularly with respect to utilization of resources mapped out for the rehabilitation of the IDPs.

Accordingly, the committee visited some of the lDPs camps and conducted a three-day public hearing after which it came up with shocking findings.

Sani in his submission said that it was absolutely true that there was serious humanitarian crisis in the North-East as evidenced by the plight of the IDPs both in camps and within the host communities.

His words: “There is hunger, disease, squalor, deprivation and want amongst the lDPs. This observation is corroborated by a statement accredited to the United Nations Deputy Coordinator of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Mr. Peter Lundberg, to the effect that a projected 5.1 million people will face serious food shortages as the (Boko Haram) conflict and risk of unexploded improvised devices prevented farmers from planting for the third year in a row, causing a major food crisis in the North- East.”

The report observed that the SGF violated some of the provisions of the Public Procurement Act and the Federal Government Financial Rules and Regulations guiding award of contracts.

For instance, Senator Sani pointed out that the committee discovered in the course of its investigation that Rholavision Engineering Limited, a company, with Lawal as director, was awarded consultancy contract, with no tangible work on ground to justify the money spent.

He explained that the company’s duty was the removal of invasive plant species in Yobe State, stating that, even though Lawal resigned his directorship of the company in September, it is on record that he was still signatory to the accounts of the company.

The lawmaker said that Lawal’s role in the contract awards notwithstanding, the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE), which carried out the entire procurement activities, operated in total contravention of relevant laws.

He lamented that those awarded contracts took undue advantage of the provision of emergency situation contract award in the Procurement Act to outrageously inflate the contract figures.

He also said most of the contracts had no direct bearing or im-pact on the IDPs, who were living in deplorable conditions, despite huge sums of money released by the government in addition to help from donors within and outside Nigeria.

His words: “Despite the claim by some Federal Government agencies, what is on ground as seen by the committee does not justify or reflect the claims.

For example, over 70 per cent of displaced children both in camps and within host communities were out of school due to lack of infrastructure. Generally there is acute shortage of food amongst the IDPs as observed in one of the IDPs visited.”

Senator Dino Melaye in his contribution said that the report indicated that Lawal became SGF before his resignation as director of the company. He added that the SGF’s action is disgraceful and runs contrary to the anti-corruption crusade of President Buhari.

“When this committee started looking at the books, Babachir Lawal ran to the Corporate Affairs Commission and quickly withdrew his directorship of the company after the execution of the contract.

As I speak to you he is still a signatory to the account of the company. This contract is not a constituency project. I am aware that going by the budget of 2015 and 2016, there is no contract award labeled against the person or name of company of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

“This is disgraceful, this is abominable, this is condemnable, this is unheard of and this is an embarrassment to members of the All Progressives Congress (APC).Babachir Lawal has exhibited anti-Buhari tendencies.

This is gross abuse of office, the truth is mightier than any currency and every lie has an expiry date,” he said, Unfortunately for the SGF, he could not control his temper after listening to all the uncomplimentary statements made against his person by the Senate, resulting in his sharp reaction to the development.

Speaking with journalists on the matter when he came to the National Assembly on the entourage of President Buhari, to present the 2017 budget the same day the Senate called for his resignation and prosecution, he expressed regret that the apex chamber did their investigation without inviting him to state his position.

He dismissed the senators’ comments on him, describing the call for his resignation and prosecution as unreasonable, rubbish and a calculated attempt to pull him down.

He said: “The Senate is talking balderdash; it has developed the habit of bring him down syndrome. Nigerians have decided that we should destroy our best; we should all destroy the promising and best among us by bringing people down without a cause.

This is just how I see it.” The Senate was quick to describe his comments as unbecoming of a public officer of the SGF’s status, who according to them, has been notorious for such outbursts in public.

Consequently, it ordered its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to investigate the derogatory comments against the institution of the Senate credited to the SGF.

The decision of the Senate to probe Lawal’s comments against it followed the adoption of a motion by a Point of Order raised by Senator Melaye under matters of personal privileges drawn from the Senate Standing Orders.

Speaking on the motion, the Senate deputy leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, said the 8th Senate was irrevocably committed to President Buhari’s anticorruption war, urging his colleagues not to dignify the SGF’s utterances by stressing on it as his comments were inconsequential.

Na’Allah pointed out that Lawal would have done himself a lot of good if the time he dedicated to castigating the Senate was used to defend himself of the allegations against him. Similarly, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, urged that the issue should not be swept under the carpet.

The President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, in his comment, wondered why an appointee of the president would be rude to the Senate at a time President Buhari is seeking the cooperation and collaboration of the legislature in the interest of national development.

Justified as the Senate’s fury may be, there is insinuation that the attack on Lawal is an indirect attack on Buhari by the senators. Those who hold this view said the intention of the lawmakers is to rubbish the president’s integrity claim; that after all, his cabinet is made up of corrupt individuals.

But, as the public waits to see how the issue would be resolved, there is no doubt that President Buhari is facing a big dilemma on the appropriate decision to take: Whether to remove Lawal to prove his uncompromising anti-corruption stand, or to leave him in order not to have been seen to be cowed by the Senate.

92 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have threatened to besiege the National Assembly should the Senate fail to tender an unreserved apology to the Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF), Babachir Lawal, within 48 hours adding that they will not allow the image of “iconic leaders to be dragged to the mud because certain cabal are against them”.

The CSOs which claimed to have over 10,000 members in Abuja alone, wondered why people of the same party will be fighting each other even as the opposition is gradually buying into the ideals of the present administration under President Muhammadu Buhari.

Recall that the senate recently asked President Muhammadu Buhari to suspend and ensure prosecution of the SGF over alleged breach of Nigeria’s law in handling contracts awarded by the Presidential Initiative for the North East, PINE.

While issuing the threat at a press conference in Abuja, the CSOs National President, Comrade Ishaku Nok, said that the allegations against the SGF remains mere insinuations until proven beyond reasonable doubt after fair hearing.

NOK said: “we demand that the senate render an unreserved apology to the SGF within 48 hours or we will be compelled to protest against this mischief because as concerned citizens and patriotic Nigerians, we should not allow any of our iconic leaders’ image to be dragged in the mud because certain cabal are against them.

“we wish to make it clear that the senate as today constituted, has no moral justification of seeking for the resignation of Mr Babachir because the president of the senate was also alleged of forgery and falsification of asset declaration at the CCT but never resigned, instead, he got a massive support from the senate as they claimed that the said allegation has not been proven by a court of competent jurisdiction.”

Some officials of the Budget Office, who were indicted and sanctioned for their roles in the padding of the 2016 budget, have surreptitiously found their ways back to the newly created cash office of the Ministry of Finance, The PUNCH has learnt.

It was gathered that the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation had redeployed the indicted officials from the Expenditure Department of the Budget Office to the new unit in the finance ministry.

Investigation revealed that 12 out of the 15 persons of the Budget Office, who were redeployed to other ministries following the budget padding scandal, had been posted to the Cash Management Office, located on the sixth floor of the Ministry of Finance by the Department of Employee Mobility in the Office of the HoS.

Employee Mobility exercises the responsibility of deploying administrative officers or executive officers with administrative responsibilities in the service.

A top source in the OHCSF told one of our correspondents on Thursday that those affected were two directors, two assistant directors and other officers from Level 07 to 13.

The source added that the officers, who were moved from the budget office, now formed the nucleus of the new department.

The source stated, “The personnel involved are the key schedule officials, they fall into the intermediate cadre who handle the major paper work in the Expenditure Department of the Budget Office.

“The indictment of the personnel of the Department led to the removal of the Director-General, Mr. Yahaya Gusau. The directorate cadre were deployed out. The directive was for the intermediate officers to be deployed out but they did not obey the directive.

“The deployment was put on hold. They were still in the Budget Office until they were deployed by the Head of Service to the Cash Management Department of the Ministry of Finance.”

It was learnt that the Ministry of Finance created the new department to reclaim some of its responsibilities which were being carried out by the Expenditure Department of the Budget Office.

The office, which was set up by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, in September this year, is saddled with the responsibility of allocating resources that accrue to the treasury to various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government.

The office, headed by Adeosun, has the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idris; the Director, Cash Allocation and other directors as members.

Its job is to assess the needs of the various ministries, match them with available resources and consider the degree of utilisation of the previous capital vote releases.

In doing so, it tries to inject more money to implement the capital component of government programmes based on the utilisation capacity of the respective MDAs.

It was learnt that the ability of the MDA to utilise capital vote, determined the funds to be released by the office.

Another official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not officially permitted to speak on the matter, said, “There is a disturbing trend now in the civil service and it has to do with the way people manoeuvre around the system for selfish reasons.

The official added, “Early this year, the news broke that some top civil servants were involved in padding the 2016 budget. Those involved in that scam, who were found culpable, were disciplined and even posted out of the budget office.

“As I speak to you now, about 12 of them have found their way back to the ministry of finance, occupying important positions.

“They were able to get their way back to the finance ministry because they would have influenced one or two people involved in postings at the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.”

When contacted to respond to claims that the cash allocation office is composed of some civil servants involved in the budget padding saga, who lobbied their way back to the finance ministry, the Media Adviser to the finance minister, Mr. Festus Akanbi, referred one of our correspondents to the Director, Press, in the ministry.

Attempts to get the comments of the Director, Press, Ministry of Finance, Mr. Salisu Dambatta, were not successful as he refused to speak on the matter, directing one of our correspondents to the Head of Service.

The Director of Communications, Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Haruna Imrana, said it was the responsibility of the Employee Mobility to move people from one department to the other.

He stated that the movement could only have been an issue if it was established by an investigative body that the affected personnel were involved in budget padding.

Imrana said, “It is the job of Employee Mobility to move people, unless you have established that these people have been wrongly moved or something. I don’t know what the news is about. Have you been able to establish that these were the people that were involved in budget padding?

“Who did the investigation on the budget padding, what is the outcome? If you have found the outcome, are these people involved? If they are involved, then of course, why were they moved from Employee Mobility, because to move people is the role of Employee Mobility?

“That is the job of that department to move people. Come to my office and I will give you a list of movement by Employee Mobility. They were moved by a department that should move them, that is a normal movement.

“Give me facts that show anomaly, give me facts that show irregularity, then I can talk.”

Former President Goodluck Jonathan says conceding the 2015 election was his personal decision.

Jonathan had congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was still collating results of the election.

Some people had said Jonathan was forced to accept the outcome which did not favour him.

But speaking at the convocation and 10th anniversary of Bingham University, Nasarawa state, Jonathan said he decided to let go of power out of his belief that his political ambition was not worth the blood of any Nigerian.

“The single act I displayed has already begun having effects on global politics as world leaders now willingly concede defeat to their opponents when they lose elections,” he said.

“Let me make it very clear, nobody within or outside the country persuaded me to do that. I know it is the right thing to do. My ambition is not worth the blood of Nigerians. It was not just a political slogan.

“It is my belief that no one’s political ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian and I am fulfilled knowing that conceding defeat, while the votes were still being compiled, was borne out of my personal principle and conviction generating positive impact on other nations.”

“I have seen politicians, whose children study and live abroad, mobilise children of others as thugs during elections. They don’t care whether they die or not. This is against human dignity. We should fulfil our vows as a nation of great people who love and respect one another.”

Lalasticlala, Mynd44

AuroraB:
Why? Why can't the man take the lead? Afterall, he's the 'head' of the family *rollseyes*

claremont:
Click on any of the channels the game is on e.g. Sky Sports 1 e.t.c.

claremont:
Get it from here https://www.mobdro.com/

eezeribe:
He left Gold for Bronze... Wait, did I say bronze?.. I mean clay

Rexhenrex:
That guy looks like a lady!
that moment when your g.f is so good in bed but so lazy to do house chores and your relatives start complaining,you be like you don't knw her very well.... aboki which other well