CHANNELS TV
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday inaugurated a committee that will ensure that the huge population of Nigerians who have no homes following their displacement by Boko Haram return home.
The Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNEI), calling on the
The committee led by General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd) is saddled with the responsibility of coordinating reconstruction efforts of the region which has been ravaged by insurgents.
According to the President, the committee will operate for only three years.
“The committee will be the apex coordinating body for all interventions in the region, including those of the family, national and international development partners.
“The committee is domiciled in the presidency and it is charged with the responsibility for developing the strategy, implementation framework for rebuilding the northeast region.
“It will exist for a period of three years while after it, it is envisaged that a long term regional development framework or entity may be established,” President Buhari stressed.
He called on the committee to approach their task with transparency.
Request For Virement Of Funds
The inauguration of the committee is coming a day after President Buhari in a letter to the National Assembly sought the lawmakers’ approval for virement of funds appropriated for special intervention to be used to fund some recurrent and capital items.
In the letter, he sought 180 billion Naira to cover the shortfalls in recurrent and capital expenditure.
It was read on the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives Chambers.
Funding of the Presidential Initiative on North East is part of the expenditure listed in the letter.
The President also stated that the fund virement was needed to cover for the inadequacies in the National Youth Service Corps budget where an additional 8.5 billion Naira is required to cover the backlog of 129,469 corps members who are currently due for call up but would otherwise be left out till next year due to funding constraints.
In the letter read by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the plenary on Tuesday, President Buhari said the Special Intervention Fund would also fund Service Wide Votes for Police Academy, Operation Lafiya Dole, Subsidy and the Nigerian Air Force among others.
The National Assembly is expected to deliberate on the letter in the coming days.
Over two million persons have been displaced in the northeast in the heat of the over six years insurgency of Boko Haram terrorists.
UNICEF has raised alarm over humanitarian crisis in the region, with huge malnutrition cases recorded among children, nursing mothers and pregnant women.
Addressing the United Nations Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York on the Movements of Refugees and Migrants President Buhari described as disheartening the number of people that have been displaced from their ancestral homes due to the activities of Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria’s northeast.
He said over 600,000 have turned refugees in neighbouring countries, with two million displaced within the northeast.
President Buhari, however, expressed concern that the refugee problem is coming at a time the world economy is shrinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment