DRAMA AS STATES HOLD ON TO FLOOD FUNDS Published on Wednesday, 24 July 2013 Hassan Obaje, father of seven and a resident of Onyedega, headquarters of Ibaji Local Government Area of Kogi State lost his house and farm to the flood that ravaged the state in 2012. While in one of the relief camps established by the state government, he was assured that his family of seven would be rehabilitated upon leaving the camp but six months after leaving the camp, he is struggling to rebuild his damaged house situated in a flood plain. As a result of the flood, Kogi got over N1 billion from the federal government, individuals and organizations in aid of the victims, but at the end, after leaving camps, most of the victims received between N3,000 and N4,000, which the victims claimed was not enough for their feeding as well as repairing houses destroyed by flood. In Taraba State, some senior government officials were recently fired for misusing the flood fund even as the victims were left unattended to. In Makurdi, Benue State where about 36,000 were displaced by the flood, a group operating under the name of concerned flood victims has lost a case in court in which it sought to compel the state government to deploy the fund received to address their plight. The state governor, Gabriel Suswan, had insisted on using the fund to provide facilities that would forestall a repeat of flooding in the state even as the state had started experiencing another round of flood as predicted by the Nigeria Metrological Agency. In Nasarawa State, the committee vested with the responsibility of assessing the extent of damage caused by the flood said it was still meeting over the fund while the victims have all returned to their houses partly destroyed by floods. In Bauchi State, Alhaji Aliyu Adamu, chairman of the state committee for the disbursement of federal government’s N400 million to the 2012 flood victims said recently that the delay in the disbursement of the money was because of the shortage of cheques. Adamu made this known in Bununu, headquarters of Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area of Bauchi State when he inaugurated the distribution of fund to victims in the area. He said that the committee had experienced shortage of cheques by banks selected to carry out the exercise at its early stage, adding that this had affected the quick disbursement of the fund. Adamu said that N5.3 million would be distributed to more than 1,190 victims, who were affected by the 2012 flood disaster in the state. He urged the victims to use the fund in agriculture-related activities to enable them to sustain themselves and remind them that the fund was meant to reduce the hardship they faced. The chairman assured that the exercise would be completed in the next three weeks. Why the states are employing various tactics as reason for not disbursing the funds to the victims? Daily Trust investigation revealed that since the federal government released N17.6 billion to states and federal agencies to address the immediate challenges facing the 2012 flood victims, no state has been able to put the fund to the use for which it was intended. It would be recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan last year dished out N17.6 billion in immediate direct financial assistance to states affected by flood in the country as well as some federal government agencies responsible for disaster management. The affected states received a total of N13.3 billion while the federal agencies got N4.3 billion. dailytrust.info/index.php/environment/1431-drama-as-states-hold-on-to-flood-funds
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 21:43:49 +0000
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