MDAs Probe: Offenders won’t go unpunished – Jonathan
BY DANIEL IDONOR
ABUJA—PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan vowed yesterday to make corruption unattractive among politicians and other public office holders, warning that anyone found culpable in the ongoing probe of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, would not go unpunished.
The President also urged Nigerians not to be in a hurry to assess his administration but urged them to wait till the middle of next year. It said that three months was too short a period to be assessed as the administration only took off with the recent constitution of the cabinet and also the resumption of the Coordinating minister and minister of finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Receiving a delegation of Yoruba Council of Elders led by its president Rt. Gen Adeyinka Adebayo during a courtesy visit to Aso Rock, Jonathan warned merchants of corruption who have over the years killed the infrastructural sector of the economy to be prepared to face the anger of the law.
The group had raised concern about the bad roads within the region and called on the federal government to as a matter of urgency do something about it regretting that despite the huge expenditure profile on infrastructure annually Nigerians have not been able to enjoy the optimal benefit of revenue from the nations natural resources including crude oil.
“All our roads are bad. Every year we budget significant sums of money, there is no year we don’t budget significant sums of money for road and yet there seems to be no road anyway, so where is that money going? I know that probably the money, it is not that some people are embezzling the money per se but we try to spread the little money into too many projects and at the end of the day we are not getting any done. We spread the money and we don’t achieve what we want and people don’t see. Where we are supposed to use N3billion we put N500 million and the contractor just use it to buy diesel and plays around and the money disappears and nobody can say yes, the federal government has this kilometres of road at least completed at least from this end to this end, that is one of the places we are looking at”, he said .
For the road infrastructure, Jonathan said “we are also looking at alternative means of funding and we have set up a committee. We must take our priority projects, see how we can fund them and that is through alternative source of funding. We have set up and economic team and economic management team. I don’t want to tell them so that they will say oh this is what the president wants and what the president said”
The president in his reaction said the administration will work on the priority areas and also see how to source alternative funding.
“We must take our priority projects, see how we can fund them and that is through alternative source of funding. We have set up and economic team and economic management team. I don’t want to tell them so that they will say o this is what the president wants and what the president said and probably by May next year we will beginning to see whether by 2015 we will be able to address some of these problems but maybe by the end of 2012, 2013 these issues would be solved
“What I request for is that by middle of next year we will meet again but this time around to compare notes whether we are on the right track.” He also said his main “concern is how do we do things differently, that is why we are working and we have constituted the economic team and we are coming out with different things even in the ministries because we must do things differently.”
Earlier the Yoruba Council of Elders had decried what it termed apparent disregard for the principle Of Federal Character and its negative effect on the South west
the elders also complained about the dilapidated state of the Lagos Ibadan express way.
