BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA –Stakeholders have raised alarm over alleged disbursement of N116.97 million into an unmanned and non-existing Office of the Chief Economic Adviser (OCEAP) to President Muhammadu Buhari from the government coffers in the last five years.
The Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Mr Eze Onyekpere, who was reacting to a report by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) on how a non-existing office of President Buhari’s Chief Economic Adviser continue to get budgetary releases for five years, raised the alarm during a radio program, Public Conscience produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development (PRIMORG).
Onyekpere equally knocked the National Assembly over the report, saying that it is unfortunate that the legislators who were supposed to scrutinize the budget, and play oversight function approved budgetary allocation for the controversial office of the Chief Economic Adviser to President Buhari.
According to him; “The budget itself, when it is prepared as a proposal, it goes through the Budget Office of the Federation, there are budget defense sessions, it goes up to the Federal Executive Council before it is now approved and sent to the National Assembly.
“So how come, the EFCC, the ICPC, the Nigerian Police and Auditor General, have caught this mischief in actual practice of budgeting in Nigeria,” Onyekpere queried.
He asked that the petition should immediately be sent out to the National Assembly, and possibly take steps of making sure that whoever is culpable should be made to refund all the monies spent on the office over the years through the judicial process.
Onyekpere also said; “I think that there should be a next step to make sure that those behind this stealing are punished and the money is returned to the treasury.”
Onyekpere also called for credible Nigerians to be appointed to lead anti-graft agencies in Nigeria, stressing that corruption and impunity have now become part of the everyday experience in the country.
He added that every Nigerian should be worried over such a report because the nation is borrowing heavily to finance the 2021 budget amid other economic challenges.
“What is the bottom line of our lives that we are paying more for fuel, we are paying more for electricity and at the end of the day, we have inflation rate at about 16.4 to 16.5; the naira is getting more useless in terms of value, the salaries and earning power of livelihoods in Nigeria is not increasing,” Onyekpere lamented.
In his own comment, the Investigative Reporter with The ICIR, Olugbenga Adanikin, noted that the corruption report cast a shadow of doubt on President Buhari’s promise to fight corruption when he emerged in 2015.
Adanikin said; “President Buhari should act more, because we want to see people go to jail. We want to see people who have been indicted, accused and the court has established that these people have been found guilty to go to jail.”
The National Assembly approved N46.86 million in the 2021 budget despite concerns of no known personnel or government official to give accounts of the monies disbursed to OCEAP since 2016.
Between 2016 and 2020, the office of the Chief Economic Adviser has been funded regularly even with no one appointed to that office.
Dr Adeyemi Dipeolu, the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, Office of the Vice President denied that he is the one spending the money.
But officials tried to pin him to the office of the Chief Economic Adviser, in a bid to cover up.
The syndicated radio program is produced by PRIMORG with the support from the MacArthur Foundation. (Forefrontng)
