The Senate will on Tuesday
(today) confirm the appointment of ministerial nominees who passed its
screening.
But the Peoples Democratic
Party on Monday called on the Senate to send the nominees’ list to the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission for further screening because “some of the
ex-governors and former ministers nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari have
corruption cases on their necks.”
The red chamber had, between
Wednesday and Monday, screened 39 out of the 43 nominees forwarded to it by
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday last week.
The nominees screened on Monday
were Gbemisola Saraki (Kwara); Goddy Jedy-Agba (Cross River); Sulaiman Adamu
(Jigawa); Maryam Katagun (Bauchi); Clement Agba (Edo); Geoffrey Onyeama
(Enugu); Muhammad Mahmoud (Kaduna); Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) and Babatunde
Fashola (Lagos).
The remaining nominees to be
screened on Tuesday (today) are Sabo Nanono (Kano), Lai Mohammed (Kwara) and
Saleh Mamman (Taraba).
The Senate President will
preside over the plenary after the screening of the remaining three nominees
and seek confirmation for each of the appointees, one after the other through
voice votes on Tuesday (today).
The red chamber is expected to
proceed on annual two months recess after the confirmation.
Some nominees are corrupt, send
list to EFCC, PDP tells Senate
But as the Senate was screening
some of the ministerial nominees on Monday, the PDP urged the Senate to further
give credibility to its ministerial screening by sending the nominees’ names to
the EFCC for further investigation and screening.
The PDP National Publicity
Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement also stated that the screening
must have enabled the Senate to further confirm that many of the nominees
presented to it by President Muhammadu Buhari included alleged corrupt persons.
These individuals, Ologbondiyan
claimed, were former governors and ministers who had allegedly wrecked their
states and ministries.
He added that some of them had
serious allegations of corruption, abuse of office and stealing of public funds
hanging on their necks.
According to him, the
nomination of persons allegedly with corruption badges to serve in the federal
cabinet indicated that “Buhari does not only condone graft but also explicitly
promotes corruption.”
He stated that this was
particularly sad as Buhari had earlier declared that he would only “nominate
persons he knows personally.”
Ologbondiyan said, “It,
therefore, speaks volumes that the persons Mr President “personally” knows and
has nominated as ministers include such individuals that have been publicly
indicted and known to be answering questions as accomplices in ongoing corruption
cases in various courts.
“The PDP calls on the Senate to note that some of the nominees have failed to defend their corruption allegations. This includes a particular former minister from the North-Central, who had admitted to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission of complicity in the N2.5bn National Broadcasting Commission fraud case, still pending in court.
“This is in addition to certain nominees, who as state governors, swindled their states, fleeced workers and committed several financial crimes for which they should rather be standing trial, instead of being rewarded with official protection as ministers.
“Our party notes that the gathering of corrupt persons as cabinet ministers is a clear pointer to a scheme by the cabal in the Presidency to further entrench corruption in our nation.
“Urging the Senate to take a cursory look at the allegations of bribe-for-ministerial-slot making the rounds in the public space, the PDP said the Senate must rise to the occasion and ensure that Nigerians are not totally let down.”
The PDP spokesman urged the
Senate to note that Buhari had not demonstrated any commitment to the fight
against corruption.
According to him, for that
reason, Nigerians now look up to the National Assembly to protect the nation
from the alleged excesses of the Buhari Presidency.
He stated that the PDP had
demonstrated this determination in its nominations for leadership positions in
the party at all levels.
Ologbondiyan urged the Senate
to stand with the people by resisting the alleged manipulations of the Buhari
Presidency to ensure that only persons with clean records were cleared as
ministers.
However, none of the presidential
spokespersons, Mr Femi Adesina and Mr Garba Shehu, responded to calls from The
PUNCH last night, to seek their comments on the position of the PDP.
But Shehu had in an interview
with The PUNCH on Sunday asked Nigerians who held the view that some of the
ministerial nominees were not qualified to become ministers to take their
complaints to the National Assembly.
He said Buhari alone could not
fight corruption in the country, hence Nigerians must also play their role in
the anti-graft war.
CACOL backs PDP, says nominees
must be subjected to graft probe
Meanwhile, the Executive
Chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Mr Debo Adeniran,
said the PDP was not alone in the call for the ministerial nominees to be
subjected to corruption probe.
Adeniran said, “It is not just
the PDP that is making that call. What we even recommended was that the Senate,
while screening, should have done background checks on the nominees to know
those that corruption allegations are hanging on their necks, because the
essence of screening is to find out how suitable they are. The Senate should
have asked them to go and clear themselves of the corruption allegations before
coming back to the Senate for screening. Those that are being prosecuted should
have been asked to have their trial concluded before they come back to the
Senate.
“I don’t understand why the President would nominate people that have been indicted of corruption. So, if the PDP is making such a demand, it is its duty to do so. But it is not only the PDP that is making the demand. CACOL is also saying that these people need to discharge themselves of the corruption allegations against them and they have to come with a clean bill of health before they would be allowed to be appointed minister.
“Besides, the nominees also should have declared their assets so that there would be a benchmark to assess them after their tenure of office.”
Infrastructure development
hopeless – Fashola
Earlier on Monday at the
Senate, a former Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola (
SAN), told the Senate that the Federal Government was helpless in tackling the
poor state of infrastructure in the country.
Fashola, who spoke while
answering questions from senators during his screening at the upper chamber,
lamented that the nation lacked the much-needed funds to fix the nation’s
infrastructural deficit.
On how to address the
challenge, he said, “I think there are some opportunities and I made this
presentation during the last 2019 budget presentation that one of the ways, I
think, is to expand instruments like the SUKUK.
“Maybe it won’t be SUKUK this time but I think Nigeria can seek to leverage the large pool of funds with the ordinary people looking for secure investment.
“I hereby propose that we should consider something like a N10tn infrastructure bond backed by parliamentary support and secured by the Federal Government with a reasonable coupon issued in tranches each year, as we need to fund infrastructure.”
On electricity, he said state
governments could generate, transmit and distribute electricity in areas not
covered by the national grid.
Tinubu demands jobs for her
constituents from nominee
There was, however, a mild
drama during the screening session when the Senator representing Lagos Central,
Oluremi Tinubu, appealed to Fashola to consider some of her constituents for
job placements to address the unemployment challenges faced by her people.
The wife of the National Leader
of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, noted that
attempts by Fashola to give jobs to Lagos Central youths in the immediate past
did not succeed.
Ex-NNPC chief suggests plan to
end oil subsidy
Also at the screening, a former
group general manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division of the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, Mr Goddy Jeddy-Agba, said it was possible to end
petroleum subsidy in the country.
He also called for the
establishment of a control room equipped with professionals and modern
technology to end oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
He said, “We don’t need to
import petroleum products. What we need to do is to strengthen the various
agencies to check the actual crude being loaded and write report.
“We do not have the technology to monitor the process of loading up to the point of export. For now, it is the international oil companies that determine the quantity of crude they export because we don’t have control over their operations.
“If I am in that ministry, I will push for the establishment of a control room where we will monitor the process of crude loading up to the point of export. We can do that in Nigeria.”
Jeddy -Agba said the best way
to stop pipeline vandalism was to lay pipes that would be difficult to destroy,
to deploy drones to monitor pipes and pour hot waters on the vandals.
Aregbesola seeks huge tax
regime for the rich
But fielding questions from the
senators during his screening on Monday, a former governor of Osun State, Rauf
Aregbesola, said he would advocate a new tax regime for wealthy Nigerians to
raise the country’s revenue.
Aregbesola, who is a nominee
from Osun State, said, “We have left the rich men in Nigeria without allowing
them to discharge their responsibilities to the citizens, particularly on
taxation. I’m going to pioneer privilege taxes for those who have huge
resources or wealth on which Nigerians must tap.
“If I go into details, there could be some ill-feelings in some quarters. I will recommend serious taxation for wealthy people in Nigeria.
“If that will now translate into lifting the burden on the states and the local government councils to reduce their penchant for taxes that make the poor people pay from their inadequate resources, I would have been satisfied. I will advocate a just tax system that will bridge the inequality in our polity.”
Aregbesola said the
misinformation about the salary situation in Osun State when he was the
governor for eight years was caused by mischievous people who were ignorant of
the situation of things then.
He said the disparity in the
payment of salaries was stopped in July 2018 before the expiration of his
tenure in November.
“The narrative on the issue of salary payment in Osun State is either mischievous or based on ignorance. Nobody can pretend that the Nigerian economy did not suffer a huge downfall from 2014 until when the current administration came in with some palliative to support the state.
“Osun State was hugely affected because we had invested heavily in infrastructure that was totally neglected before. Personnel cost alone was 63 per cent of my total income then.
“Osun State civil service population is huge and top heavy. Whereas workers on grade levels one to seven that constitute 73 per cent of the civil servants take less than N1bn while the fat cats in the levels eight and above were less than 30 per cent of the civil servants but take over N2bn.
“I was therefore forced to do an interesting balancing short of retrenchment. I had to constitute a panel under the leadership of Mr Hassan Sunmonu to monitor all revenue incomes of the state and apportion whatever is left to salaries which was done innovatively.
“We knew that officers on levels one to seven and pensioners cannot even survive on their salaries if we didn’t pay their full salaries. We never owe anybody on levels one to seven a dime.
“But officers from levels eight to 10 earn 75 per cent of their salaries throughout my tenure which ended in July 2018, we stopped all forms of partial payment to anybody in July 2018 and I left the office in November 2018.”
He said it was only those officers
on levels 12 and above that had to earn 50 per cent of their salaries between
July 2015 and July 2018.”
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