Senate accuses minister of failure to account for N30b SURE-P funds

The Senate yesterday accused the Minister of
Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen for 'refusing' to
account for N30 billion appropriated for his
ministry for Subsidy Reinvestment and
Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) projects.
Chairman, Committee on SURE-P Senator Abdul
Ningi, who made the allegation, threatened
that the Senate might be forced to give zero
allocation to SURE-P in the 2015 budget.
Ningi addressed a news conference in Abuja
over the alleged refusal of the minister to
appear before his committee to account for
the scheme's funds.
He said that members of the committee waited
for over two hours for the minister to honour
a scheduled meeting without any word from
him.
Ningi noted that by refusing to appear before
the committee to answer questions for his
actions, the Minister was clearly undermining
President Goodluck Jonathan.
He described the minister's action as "a show
of lawlessness and crass ignorance of the law."
He said: "We are all aware that huge sum of
money was appropriated to the Ministry of
Works to execute SURE-P projects. We sat here
from 2pm and we have been waiting to hear
from the Minister of Works, Minister of State
for Works or even the Permanent Secretary.
"The Minister acknowledged receipt of our
invitation. We want to tell the person who
appointed them that he appointed the wrong
people."
Insisting that the action of the Minister is
"completely unacceptable" Ningi said that
nobody should be allowed to treat the Senate
with contempt.
He said that the Senate would take every
available legal action to take the Minister to
the Committee to account for the funds.
He said: "They (ministers) are trying to
undermine the President and frustrate the
country. We cannot take it. They cannot
frustrate this committee. It is important that
this message be taken to the President that the
ministers are undermining him.
"Otherwise we can refuse to appropriate funds
for the programme in the 2015 budget. This is
a programme so many people are asking
questions and the minister will not come to
say what he is doing with funds appropriated
to him.
'We take very strong exception to the non
appearance of the Minister of Works. It is no
longer business as usual."
Ningi said that his Committee was also
interested to know the beneficiaries of N3,000
said to have been paid to 10,000 youths in
each state under SURE-P youth scheme.
He said that his committee requested for the
list of beneficiaries for more than one month
without success.