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Govs divert state funds into forex
Govs divert state funds into
forex – Finance minister
DAVID AGBA,
Abuja
Minister of
State for Finance, Mrs. Nenadi Usman has expressed serious concern over alleged
frivolous spending pattern of many governors and called on the people to query
the latter on monthly use of revenue accruing to their areas.
She also said a few days after statutory
allocation from the Federation Account was shared among the three tiers of
government, the value of other currencies against the Naira often jumped at the
foreign exchange (Forex), market, pointing out that the tendency showed that the
allocation was being ploughed into purchase of hard currency instead of for the
development needs of the people.
Mrs. Usman took the position during a
visit to the Debt Management Office (DMO) in Abuja weekend.
Mrs. Usman called for greater scrutiny of
the activities of governors, particularly those who received huge sums of money
as oil derivation monthly.
The minister challenged Nigerians to
question their governors on how they spend the funds they received monthly.
"States have been a source of worry to us
lately. If you look at the way money is shared at the Federation Accounts
Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting, the Federal Government gets about 48 per
cent.
"Whatever measure we put in place at the
federal level, if they (states and the local governments) which take the
remaining 52 per cent of the funds don’t care for such measures, then, we have
failed.
"We must begin to hold our leaders
accountable. At the federal level, we have been doing a lot to ensure openness.
The Federal Ministry of Finance now publishes what each state receives on a
monthly basis and even down to the local government."
Mrs. Usman said the value of hard
currencies jumped up at the Forex market immediately after every month’s
allocations were shared.
She said such indicates that the
allocations were being used to buy forex, regretting that even states with the
highest allocations had nothing to show for the billions of naira so far
pocketed.
The minister wondered why Nigerians expect
much from the Federal Government in terms of capital development projects with
only allocations coming to it from the Federation Account, without asking
governors and chairmen of local governments what they do with their funds in
terms of viable projects.
According to the Minister, the policy of
transparency and the on-going war against corruption could only deliver the
expected returns if all well-meaning Nigerians rise up to the challenge of
ensuring that state and local governments were transparent in terms of
expenditure and imbibe fiscal discipline.
Mrs. Usman enjoined the DMO to disregard
requests from state governments seeking to borrow money from the capital market,
as "many of them are already heavily indebted to foreign creditors."
Earlier, the Director-General (DG) of DMO
Dr. Mansur Muhtar, had solicited the minister’s assistance for improved funding
of the office, given its enormous responsibilities, especially now that it DMO
is to take over the debt conversion responsibility hitherto handled by the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
He said the DMO had been called upon to
take over the reconciliation and processing of debts owed to local contractors
by federal ministries and agencies which amounted to an added task.
Dr. Muhtar told the minister that the
office must restructure to facilitate effectiveness and high standards.
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