Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume; has called on President Muhammadu Buhari
to urgently dissolve the Palliatives Distribution Committee (PADC) led
by Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Hajiya
Sadiya Farouk.
Ndume who represents Borno south senatorial district and Senate
committee Chairman on Army raise the alarm Wednesday at his Maiduguri
residence, while briefing journalists on alleged lopsided disbursement
of palliatives to poor and vulnerable.
“The activities of the Sadiya led- committee is fraudulent and should
be investigated immediately,” he said.
He said that Buhari’s good will to reach the poor with palliatives
during COVID-19 pandemic and beyond may be eroded by kleptocracy that
surrounds the President.
According to him, Hajiya Sadiya Farouk has failed to carry out her job
in a ‘transparent and equitable disbursement exercise across the
country.
Sen. Ndume described the manner and ways of distributing palliatives
to the poor and vulnerable as fraudulent.
His words: “I’m not trying to make allegations against the Minster of
Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
“What I’m saying are facts. If they will continue with the way they
are doing now, they had better not distribute the palliative at all
because it’s a fraud.
“My concern now is the manner and ways the palliative measures taken
by the President is being executed.
“We have received numerous complaints and it’s very unfortunate, left
to me, I’m calling for the so – called Humanitarian committee headed
by the Minster of Humanitarian Affairs to be disbanded immediately.
“The President should set up a task force to handle issues of palliatives.”
On composition of new task force, he said: “The task force under the
Chairmanship of each state governor should include a Senator and House
of Assembly member from each of the 36 states.
“Others to be incorporated, include the Army, Police, Civil Defense,
religious organisation, Red Cross, Civil Society Organisations.
He said the inclusion of these security agencies and civil society
organisations was to ensure equitable and efficient distribution of
palliatives to the poor and vulnerable.
“I don’t mind the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and members of
Social Investment Programs (SIP) as members of palliatives
disbursement task force,” he said.
While picking holes in disbursement of palliatives, he said: “I
wondered why Zamfara state where the minister hails from would have
huge number of beneficiaries as against Sokoto, Borno, Yobe states
among others.
“Imagine in Zamfara state, where the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs
home state; has 291, 629 households and 1.34 million individuals
captured under National Social Register (NSR) of poor and vulnerable
households for March, 2020.
“Sokoto state which is adjudged the poorest state in the country, has
a paltry of 3,347 households and 18, 435 poor individuals.”
He said that even Borno state affected by decade long insurgency; has
only 7,130 households with only 33,728 individuals.
According to him, the current population of Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) in 23 camps is 1.56 million.
While lamenting on alleged inflated NSR, he said: “I have reliable
information that even names on register, are fakery generated by the
Sadiya led Ministry,” noting that the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN)
are not fraud proof.
“A person could generate thousands of names, thereafter; connive with
commercial banks, and issue BVN. It’s investigation that will reveal
all these.
“They have the names of their cooks, drivers, relatives, relatives of
their house helps and those they call the poorest of the poor and give
this money to them.
“I call on the press to join in call to stop this callous act. You can
imagine the situation our people are in at the moment; yet some people
are rushing to either share or steal this money.
Hajiya Farouk has however; distance herself from the allegations.
“These monies that are speculated to being shared is a program that
has been in existence since 2016, is not a COVID- 19 money sharing
stuff,” she said.
She said that her Ministry will focus on the urban poor, National
Social Register (NSR) as well as Bank Verification Number (BVN) to
determine who benefits from the distribution palliatives to cushion
devastating effects of COVID-19 on people.
“You are aware that the President in his broadcast of Monday 13th
April, directed that we expand the beneficiaries of the conditional
cash transfer by one million and in this regard, we are going to focus
more now on the urban poor.
“These are people who depend on the informal sector to earn their
livelihood; they are daily wage earners and these are the people that
we are really going to focus more on as well as people living with
disabilities.”
On adopting three methods in selecting beneficiaries for the scheme,
she said: “We have three options; one, we are going to use the NSR
that we already have.
“Two, we are also going to focus on the urban poor; by using their
verified BVN accounts to get them, that is, people that have an
account balance of N5, 000 and below.
“We are also using the mobile networks, to know people that top up the
credit units for their phones with maybe N100 or less.
“Those are also people that we consider to be poor and vulnerable. I
am sure that by the time we get this data we will be able to give this
intervention.”
