A chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) in Abia state, Prof Gregory Ibe has urged Federal Government to set up a panel of inquiry to look into how one billion naira palliatives and others given to the state governors were spent.
According to Prof Ibe, a governorship aspirant under the platform of PDP in the state, there is need for the federal government to properly investigate how the one billion naira, food items, and the additional funds from donor agencies given to state governors were used during the covid 19 pandemic.
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He said the essence of government was for the welfare and good of the people, saying that if those items meant to soften the suffering of people were not distributed, it speaks volumes.
“Federal responded quickly and timely by releasing one billion naira to each state governor, some bags of rice and some individuals also donated to states and the federal government.
“If those items did not get to the people who actually needed them, it calls for setting up of panel of inquiry to investigate how they spent the resources made available to them during the period,” he said.
According to Prof Ibe, the money provided to governors could comfortably provide enough molecular laboratories and food items for each state, noting that a molecular laboratory cannot cost more than N25 million if there was already a building in place.
He said that, with N100 million, each state could have built enough molecules to test everybody in each state and one billion naira provided could have gone a long way to give succour to the people.
According to him, If not for National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), no state governor was able to build a single lab, even with the money from the Federal government and some donor agencies.
“When covid 19 started federal government shared a lot of seized rice to state governments, which some states complained that they were not human friendly and yet some governors still share to their people which they ate and did not die,” he said.
He wondered why state governments could not share the palliatives that were meant for that moment, instead chose to keep them for further outbreak.
He also described some of the excuses given by some state governments for not sharing the covid 19 palliatives as not tenable “because the items were to solve immediate problems and not for storing for further outbreak.
“Why would the Governors store the items in Warehouse when people are suffering and it took the EndSARS protests for people to discover that there’re food items meant to remedy their suffering during the covid 19 pandemic,” he said.
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