Governor Saminu Turaki of Jigawa has berated the World
Bank for its nonchalant attitude to the welfare of Nigeria by fostering on
it an unworkable economic plan.
Speaking during the bank�s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS)
forum, in Birnin Kebbi on Monday, Turaki told the gathering that the bank�s
plans were waste of time, as its approaches were designed to fail.
Turaki noted that given the bank�s track records, the CAS
initiative would take more than one year to be implemented, saying, �the
present political leadership do not have such a long period to support the
initiative.��
�You should know that the present political leadership
will not be around by the end of 2007, both the Federal Government and the
36 state governors will not be around to give continuity to the
initiative,�� he added.
Turaki suggested that the world bank should tailor its
programmes and initiative in line with the current programmes of the various
governments aimed at improving the living conditions of their people.
He criticised the bank over the way it disbursed its
grants to needy countries, saying, �you are not serious about Nigeria�s
problem. You offered Zaire $1 billion grant, but gave Nigeria $200
million.��
The host governor, Alhaji Adamu Aliero of
Kebbi also criticised the bank for its unnecessary
bureaucratic red-tapism, which usually gulped a lot of time, before the
bank�s intervention.
Aliero also criticised the world institution for its
tendency to take interest in negative occurrence in the country.
He said the bank behaved as if the present civilian
government had failed to perform, in spite of its impressive record of
programmes� implementation.
He however, assured the bank that his government would
continue to meet its counterpart funding, so that the state could enjoy
maximum benefit from the bank�s loan packages.
Responding to the complaints, the bank�s country
director, Mr Andrew Kitt, said: �I completely agreed with all that had been
said, it is very clear that we have to change our way of working.��
He spoke about the bank�s desire to focus on those states
whose plans would yield some results by providing them budgetary assistance
and support to enable them to provide services to their people.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano,
Kaduna, Katsina, Nassarwa, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara states attended the
forum.
