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‘Accountability a serious challenge in the environmental sector’

What is FTM all about?FTM is a platform created to avail Nigerians how funds provided for projects and programmes in the sector are being deployed.…

What is FTM all about?
FTM is a platform created to avail Nigerians how funds provided for projects and programmes in the sector are being deployed. It is our ambition to provide answers to the big questions when it comes to accountability and transparency in Nigeria: Are all these funds been spent on what they are meant for? Is there any documentation of how these funds were used?”
Follow the Money (FTM) tries to answer questions about the way that funds meant for development are being utilized within our local communities. How much is spent on community development? Where does it go? What is it spent on? Who spends it? Our aim is to provide clear, objective evidence on resources, easily accessible on paper and online, so that decisions and policy can better be informed on how transparent and accountable these processes are. FTM advocates, tracks and visualizes aid [from international donor agencies or government spending] meant for local communities.
Our mission is to give people the news and information (through reports, blogs and community specific prints shared with thousands of people in our network) their need about aid meant for their communities, and the means to make their voices heard.  We believe that when people are better informed, they can more easily hold their leaders accountable.
How will the initiative bring about a clean environment for Nigeria?
In Nigeria alone, about $6.5 trillion worth of foreign aid has been received between 2000 and 2012, while the government of the country itself, both federal and states by the end of 2013 will have spent about $500 million. So what? The country still ranks 153 amongst 170 countries in the recent Human Development Index and 139 in about 160 countries on the Transparency Corruption Index. Where did all the money go? If government spending reached communities for which it is intended, there would not be much need for foreign aid.
FTM hopes to close the feedback loop between the citizens and government by creating tools to enable citizens to give feedback on government performance as we have seen with the Education Budget Tracker. We stronger incentives for, and greater capacity within, governments to respond to citizens’ feedback through our free data expedition class and incentives and the capacity for citizens to engage with government to improve their policies and services through our stakeholders meetings
What was the outcome of your following of the funds allocated for The Bagega remediation?
In May 2012, the Federal Government promised to release N850 million for the remediation of the only village that has not been remediated as part of the 2010 emergency response to the Zamfara Lead Poisoning crisis. After a vigorous advocacy campaign between November 2012 and January 2013, where about 600,000 people were reached via the social media, coupled with the news generated by the local, national and international media, by the end of January 2013, N837.3 million was released from the Ecological Fund Office to three federal ministries.
How much was allocated to the project and could you say it was used judiciously?
The Federal Ministry of Environment received N479 million for the remediation [clean-up] of Bagega, the Federal Ministry of Health was to receive N200 million to support and make health intervention within lead communities sustainable, while the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development [MMSD] received N158.3 million for safer mining practices.
Following the use of funds to the community level, the ministry of environment has been able to complete remediation of Bagega, and with our own yardstick and visualization, we say 90 per cent of the funds reached the community but the funds for hazard allowance to the workers have not been paid. As at November 2013, when we met with the Ministry of Health, they informed us the 200million meant for the ministry was still been withheld at the Federal Ministry of Finance. We had written to the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, requesting for information  on this shocking news and have not yet received any feedback from the ministry. With regards to MMSD, ensuring safer mining is not a quick fix, as such they have been trying several interventions in ensuring this, and we are sure they have not stopped – about four different machines have been deployed to Zamfara. They have started an extension service and one safer mining workshop with artisanal miners was held, so our visualization is that 70 per cent of the funds have been seen in the communities.
Are you following the money released by government for relief and rehabilitation of the 2012 flood victims?
Yes, we knew the government provided a total of NGN17.6 billion
Do you have an idea how much the Dangote committee has so far collected?
As at June 2013, at the fund raising dinner held at the Presidential Villa on November 8, 2012, eminent citizens pledged about N11.35bn for the task.
The Federal Government and Dangote made the highest donation of N2.5bn, while co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Zenith Bank Plc, Jim Ovia, and former UBA Group Managing Director, Tony Elumelu, donated N1bn each.
Are you following the contribution and disbursement?
Well, we have not been able to follow the funds to the community level.
As we are a small team using the little resource we have, we haven’t been able to keep up with accountability at the community level, nevertheless, we will be visiting these communities this month.
Victims of the flood are saying that the Dangote committee has failed them. As a group following the money, what can  you say on that?
Perhaps, we should recall that aside the 11.35bn raised by the Dangote flood committee, in October 2012, the Federal Government of Nigeria provided a total of NGN17.6 billion where states received N13.3 billion, and federal agencies  received N4.3 billion and about US$12.8 million was received from donors (individuals and organizations).  We have been following this, and we have been receiving displeasing news about the disbursement of these funds to victims, especially in states like Kogi, Enugu, Benue, Adamawa and Anambra.
With that said, the flood affected about 7.7million Nigerians and all aid that went in for victims totalled about 16 billion Naira. Truth be told, that would not solve their problems, at short term, not to talk of long term. Perhaps, government should have been investing this funds in building resilient strategies for each community, this tend to solve the problem of flooding even in the near future, and also will make the communities and community members resilient. The president should sign the Climate Change Commission Bill into law so that the country can put together a technical team to use this funds appropriately for a sustainable solution.
Talking about other monies, including the 4million dollars given to Nigeria for the UN REDD Programme, is the country getting value from all these funds?
At the 7th Policy Board meeting on 17th of October 2011 in Berlin, Germany, the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD) approved US$4 million to fund Nigeria’s National REDD+ Programme for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
This funding was geared towards supporting the capacity of Nigerian government to implement REDD+ strategies with the active involvement of local stakeholders, including indigenous peoples, other forest dependent communities and stakeholders, to ultimately contribute to the global fight against climate change but it’s still far from achieving that objective. We lose trees in our forest every day, without them been accounted for. There are still no accurate data that can be used in reporting from our forest reserves.
The Federal Colleges of Forestry in Ibadan and Jos (if we still remember we have them) have a combined allocation of about 1.6 billion Naira (that’s about US$10 million) for the past two years, while the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria in Ibadan has an allocation of about 1 billion Naira yearly and what has their impact been on indigenous people and their forest areas.
In 2013 alone, the Ministry of Environment has about 874 million Naira budget for Tree planting majorly in the Northern Nigeria, but we will ask where are the trees! while some initiatives have been seen by some state governments in the North to encourage tree planting, more states should start too and compliment each others effort.

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