REPS MOVES TO INVESTIGATE NEMA
nassnewsng.com
Alexander Blessing
At the plenary on Thursday, member of the house of reps move motion to investigate the violation of public trust by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
The primary duty of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is to coordinate the management of disaster across the country and to assist victims of such disasters but inspite of the duty vested on NEMA, serveral cases of disaster across the country have not been given attention. An instance of hunger in the IDP camp in the northeast was given about the farmers/herdsmen conflicts, fire disaster victims and other cases across the country that have been neglected.
The house said that it’s concern that the Agency has received more than 10 billion naira from the 20% National Ecological fund in the last one year, 5 billion naira for hunger intervention in the northeast and about 2 billion naira for flood intervention across the country.
The house is concerned that the funds received by NEMA were illegally siphoned by officials of the Agency through dubious award of contract without delivering relief materials to the victims.
Hon Benjamin J Wayo led the debate by saying that the Agency should be investigated for awarding contracts above its approval limit. He said that the director of the agency awards contracts to companies he has personal interest and has violated his approval limit by awarding contracts to a single firm without due process. He gave instance of Olam Nigeria Limited that was awarded a contract of 2.4 billion naira which is against the agency’s approval limit as stated in section 16 subsection 1 of the NEMA Act.
Hon. Danladi Tope from Kwara said that NEMA is incompetent in managing it resources. He further noted that NEMA is known for siphoning funds.
Hon Johnson in his debate said that NEMA lacks the modesty in allocating funds.
The house has mandated the committee on Emergency and Disaster preparedness to investigate and report back within six weeks.
