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Senate to review Due
Process
By Adetutu
Folasade-Koyi
and Paul
Mumeh, Abuja
Piqued that
six weeks to the end of the nation�s fiscal year, and capital projects are
yet to be completed, the Senate has promised to review the Federal
Government's Due Process Policy.
Specifically,
Due Process has been cited as having successfully stalled capital projects
in the Internal Affairs Ministry by denying them access to
funds.
Coming on
the heels of Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala�s commendation of
the Due Process policy of the Federal Government, Senator Abubakar Danso
Sodangi, chairman of the committee has promised to lobby the Senate to
review the process.
Sodangi
lamented that through the committee�s investigations, the Due Process
Department has unnecessarily delayed more than 80 percent of the
ministry�s capital projects, which would have contributed to meaningful
prison reforms this year.
Apparently
unimpressed about the delay, Sodangi stated that the Due process office is
a cog in the wheel of delivering democracy dividends to Nigerians. �We in
this committee, in concert with our colleagues in the Senate, will see to
it that the operations of the Due Process office is reviewed in order to
meet the exigencies of our time and not to make a mockery of the federal
government�s efforts in delivering democracy dividends to our teeming
populace. The time needed to get a project passed by the Due Process
office is too long and anyway, the office cannot constitute itself into
another authority.
�The 2005
Appropriation cannot be successfully accomplished without recourse to last
year�s budget performance. Through our committee�s oversight functions,
correspondences received, tours and enquiries, it is most unfortunate that
as at today, more than 80 percent of your capital projects have not been
implemented or are still undergoing due process mechanism.
�Members
are dismayed that in spite of the poor implementation in the 2004 budget,
your capital projects have not taken off, six weeks to the end of the
fiscal year, which presupposes that they may not commence this year, if at
all they will take off. This is most unfortunate. Much as we support this
government�s policy of accountability, prudence and transparency, but it
may appear that the Due Process office is becoming an obstacle in the
execution of good policies of the federal government,� said
Sodangi.
Meanwhile,
Internal Affairs Minister, Dr Iyorchia Ayu was on Monday stranded at the
local wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos when he could not
secure a flight to Abuja after distributing National Identity Cards in
Ogun State. His Minister of State, Ibrahim Sambawa disclosed this Tuesday
when the ministry appeared before the Senate Committee on Internal Affairs
to defend the 2005 Appropriation bill.
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