The Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, on Thursday insisted that the N5,000 promised one million Nigerians by the current Federal Government and contained in the 2016 budget may not be implemented due to lack of feasible strategies.
Goje made this known during an interactive session organised by the Joint National Assembly Committee on Appropriation with government officials in Abuja, saying the the passage of the 2016 budget proposal will not exceed March 17 as earlier promised.
He said: “There is no detailed, clear-cut structure laid down for implementation of this project because what we have in this budget is N300 billion Recurrent and N200 billion Capital.
“We had to push hard yesterday to get some details, which are not convincing.
“For instance, the explanation we got is that N5,000 will be given to one million Nigerians. Who would choose the one million people? What structures do you have in place to make sure that you choose the right people?
“You want to give money N5,000 to about one million market women or thereabout and, in my place, we do not have many market women; and how would you choose the market women to represent all interests?
“We have not gotten clear explanations to these numerous issues surrounding the implementation of this money. Even the afternoon school feeding contained in the budget is not feasible because some students study under non-conducive environment. Will feeding them enhance their learning?”
He assured of the National Assembly’s support to the programme but stressed that it may not be implemented in 2016.
He said: “We are all happy with the programme and I am a party man to the core, but what needs to be done needs to be done very well. I think there is a need to do a greater work on implementation; otherwise this money will go down the drain.
“We support this programme. We want Mr President to succeed. We want our party to succeed. We want to continue to win this election but we want the programme to be successful.
“So, we want you to come up with workable implementation strategy; otherwise there are so many things that require attention in this country. We would rather use this money to solve our problems.
“Use this year to do very sound groundwork for implementation so that the programmme can take off next year.”
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