The Lawmaker representing Esan North East/South East constituency in Edo state, Sergius Ogun has described the federal government N5000 "Social Intervention Programme" as visionless and waste of public funds.
Ogun made this assertion during an interview with press men in the National Assembly. He said the government as it stands lack a proper system in place to embark on such a programme.
According to him, "The APC administration, though trying to fulfil a probable campaign promise should have had a rethink regarding the effectiveness of the system and the cost of implementing it".
"I made a distress call on the floor of the House last year. And maybe they made that promise during the campaign, but with what is on ground today, is it achievable? I think it is not expedient that they go ahead with it, and with all honesty, Nigerians will understand", Ogun queried.
Speaking further, Ogun said he will prefer that the meager resources available would be channeled into infrastrutural development. He also lamented the fall in oil prices at the international market and of course the crises in the Niger Delta region which has led to scarcity of funds.
"Look at the price of oil, maybe they were hoping that it would come up, and with what is happening in the Niger Delta; more so that we are in a recession now, if you put that money in infrastructure and let's say we budgeted XY amount of money and put it in the Lagos-Ibadan expressway project or the Abuja-Lokoja road project. Let's just tie the money to a specific project and if this money will go there, do you know the number of people that will be employed?", he questioned.
"So we should be targeting projects that do not just bring in extra income but allow for employment. Because most of the problems we have in this country today are due to youth restiveness and the fact that many people are not working, and the youths are not engaged".
He also noted that the authorities lack the capacity and the data to successfully implement such considering countries like United States (US) with a near perfect system yet same Nigerians who are beneficiaries of such schemes in the US still find a way to subvert the system.
" So I think it is misplaced, I don't think it is expedient, I also think it is lack of vision. I said the last time I was on this topic that what is N5000 to an unemployed person? What will be the mode of even putting it in place? And I also mentioned, those that are on unemployment benefit in the UK and food stamp in the US are largely Nigerians. And they de-frauded the system".
"You will see Nigerians that are on unemployment benefits for 15 to 30 years, and they are graduates. Most of them have gone to jail because they were caught using people's names, people who don't even exist or are dead to collect money in different counties. They would claim houses and collect money in the names of those people, even with that kind of system".
"If Nigerians have gone to jail for that kind of things in a more sophisticated system, you can imagine what they will do in our system here that is very corrupt. We can't even manage our pension. We have been talking of ghost workers every day, we can't even arrest it. From the local governments to state - up to the federal government, there are ghost workers".
Another vital issue the lawmaker pointed at is the criteria the government has considered in arriving at the poorest people our society.
"Now you are setting up a system, how are you going to manage it? Setting up the system alone is going to cost money, I don't know how they arrived at the poorest amongst us. I don't know, because my state is not among the States they started with, so I wouldn't know how they arrived at those who are now beneficiaries. If my state was among, I would have seen the people to know the criteria used. But I think it's just a waste of public funds", Ogun stated.
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