The Director-General of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Mr. Adewale Oyerinde, has expressed concerns about the Federal Government’s allocation of N185 billion to the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory at N5 billion each, warning that if not guided by some expenditure framework, could be misappropriated.
The Director-General, who expressed this position during an interview in Channels Television on Friday, described the intervention by the Federal Government on the allocation as desirable but raised the need for a management framework which should have been released to guide the sub-national governments.
He said: “How exactly will the N5 billion be distributed? What purpose will the N5 billion be put into? Looking at where we were before now and what brought us to this point; the fuel subsidy removal created a shock that devolved into many other issues, you cannot be complaining about the effect and feeding the cause.
“Whatever solution we are bringing should first address the root cause of the fuel subsidy, will the N5 billion be used to address the root cause? Will it be judiciously used to impact the lives of those that the government has selected to be the beneficiaries of those funds?
“For us, it is less about the amount but what exactly is the framework that will be used to disburse these funds? If you don’t create a framework or a path where that N5 billion will trickle down to those that need it, then you have created another inefficient system”, the NECA boss added.
Oyerinde, who is also a member of the Governing Board at the International Labour Organization (ILO), explained that this was imperative as the database that was used to identify the poorest of the poor in the country was beingreviewed, adding that if credible data is not available for identifying the right people to benefit from the palliatives, then the purpose will be defeated.
It would be recalled that that the Federal Government had last Thursday allocated N5 billion to each state including the FCT as palliatives to cushion the effects of the removal of the petrol subsidy.
Available information on the funding intervention indicates that 52% of the allocation is given as grants while the balance is to be paid back on installments within 20 months to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by the beneficiaries.
