Secret Reporters No place to hide
Here’s the latest news you missed during the week about the 2021 Budget and its Priorities, SMEDAN’s suspicious payments to unverified contractors, Oyo State government fraud, and FMC nameless transactions.
In the last five years, Buhari spent a cool ₦37bn keeping his home in tip-top shape. So, rather than build over 1000 Primary Healthcare Centres at a rate of ₦28m, he repainted his garage. With premium paint, one might add. But perhaps this should not surprise us. It was the same Aso Villa that spent over ₦25bn on electricity/plumbing in the same period. And to top it off, 2021 allocations for this purpose stands tall at ₦11bn. Never mind all the conversations on deficits and low revenue projections.
Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda, the director-general of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) signed cheques worth over ₦2.55 billion in the first quarter of 2020. What is more? SMEDAN made these payments while violating open contracting protocols. That’s right, all the payments were without descriptions, a move experts have since condemned for being dubious. Dataphyte also observed a string of double payments to the same companies within the same month.
Makinde’s “Operation Zero Potholes” might be producing zero results, according to Oyo state indigenes. And despite a ₦245 million contract to solve this challenge, a handful of roads remain facelifted with massive potholes. Road users lament the abandoned state of their roads. Citizen involvement in governance might prove effective, expert charges.
Despite Engineer Makinde ₦5billion for road maintenance, residents of Ibadan, the state capital, bemoan the vast amount of potholes on major roads – Oremeji to Idi Obi and Ojo to Igbo Oloyin.
The Federal Medical Centre Katsina disbursed ₦88 million (Exactly 88,963,531.45) in ‘nameless transactions’. Not only is this a continuing trend with federal MDAs contravening principles of Open Contracting, but it has ethical considerations for a medical health centre. Meanwhile, Katsina and the other Northern states still battle critical health situations. Not to mention the undescribed money could solve most health problems in the region.
