BENGONET Chairman Justin Gbagir Slams Benue State Government For Failing To Justify Collection Of N13B & N11B Bond.

A fortnight ago, the Chairman of BENGONET granted a press conference where he demanded an account of the 13 Billion Naira Bond the government collected in 2011 and a justification for the 11 Billion Loan in 2014. The said press conference elicited reactions from Dr. Cletus Akwaya, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Public Affairs who rather than giving account of the 13 Billion Bond and justifying the collection of the 2014 bond resorted to cheap blackmails by calling BENGONET “a partisan organization”. This press release is therefore in response to the blatant and unsubstantiated claims by Dr. Akwaya on behalf of the government.Continue to read the full response .


IN THE BEGINNING:

In 2007 when His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Benue State, Rt. Hon. Dr. Gabriel T. Suswam was campaigning and soliciting for the peoples’ vote, he had what he christened “Our Benue Our Future” as his economic blue print. When he was eventually elected and sworn in as the Executive Governor of the state, he constituted a Committee which harmonized the Benue State Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (BENSEEDS) and Our Benue, Our Future and the latter name was maintained for the document that became the economic blue print of the State.

The Executive Summary of Our Benue, Our Future captured its objectives as follows:

“Our Benue, Our Future” – Medium Term Plan (2008) –(2011) defines a process of sustainable development, a guide for progress that derives justification from a clear vision, mission and values and fundamental principles. The States vision stems from the felt needs and desires of the people of Benue State. This explains why “Our Benue, Our Future” is a people rather than government programme. The vision underscores the need to build a state where every citizen can pursue and realize their potentials, with government encouragement”

“Our Benue, Our Future” went ahead to set out the vision, mission and values of Benue State as follows:

“Vision: Through God to build a new, united, just and greater Benue that will be economically prosperous, socially organized and culturally dynamics with equal opportunities and responsibilities for all,

Mission: To eradicate poverty, inequality, ignorance

and ill-health

Values: The new Benue of our vision will be a state where all the negative values in our society today will be reversed. In their place, values of integrity, transparency, and respect for human rights, accountability, good governance, justice, equity, mutual respect and love will be entrenched. Benue State as an integral part of Nigeria is committed to ensuring that her citizens derive maximum rights as contained in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”

The document also set out a summary of sectoral goals and targets. A narrative part preceding each section and sub-section spelt out the development challenges facing the state, and also defines the goals. A tabular schedule specifically indicates the current development status, desired targets and required strategies in each sector.

At page 14 of Our Benue, Our Future, the 3 Senatorial Zones of the state stated their respective priority needs as follows:

PRIORITIES ZONES Senatorial Zone A Senatorial Zone B Senatorial Zone C 1 Agriculture Agriculture Roads/Agriculture 2 Roads Education Roads 3 Education Health Roads 4 Health Water Education 5 Water Water & Justice Water

TABLE 1

Section 7 of Our Benue, Our Future document also makes provision for “PROJECTED RESOURCE FROFILE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF OUR BENUE, OUR FUTURE PROGRAMMES” as follows:

2006 BILLION 2007 BILLION 2008 BILLION 2009 BILLION 2010 BILLION 2011 BILLION FEDERATION ACCOUNT 18.0 18.0 20.0 25.0 25.0 25.0

VAT 6.0 6.0 7.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 EXCESS CRUDE 4.0 4.0 4.0 6.0 3.0 2.0

NET INTERNALLY GENERATED

1.6 1.6 1.7 4.0 6.0 10.0

TOTAL INFLOW 29.6 29.6 32.7 44.0 44.0 47.0

TABLE 2

It is to be noted that Our Benue, Our Future was to commence from the beginning of 2008 and elapse at the end of 2011. A perusal of the projected resource profile above will show that a total of N167,700,000,000 was needed for the full implementation of Our Benue, Our Future Programmes from 2008 to 2011. We shall now look at the Benue State Budgets from 2008 to 2011 to see how much was budgeted and actually realized for the implementation of Our Benue, Our Future programmes.

TABLE 3

OUR BENUE OUR FUTURE THROUGH BUDGETS FROM 2008 TO 2011

His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Dr. Gabriel Suswam executed four budgets from 2008 to 2011. The Budget being the only document that governments translates it economic policies into reality, a look at the said four budgets will show the level of commitments by the government in keeping faith with “Our Benue, Our Future”.

As shown in table 3, the Benue State government generated a total of N213,508,176,550.51 from 2008 to 2011. As stated in Table 2, the state government required the sum of N167,700,000,000 to implement the programmes of Our Benue, Our Future from 2008 to 2011. A deduction of the figure from table 2 from the figure in table 3 will show that there is a surplus of N45,808,176,550.51. This shows clearly that the state government did not need a bond of 13 Billion in 2011 in the first place. Even if the state government had not taken a bond of 13 Billion, the government would have still had a surplus of N32,808,176,550.51.

The only reasonable conclusion is that, either the state government abandoned the implementation of the programmes in Our Benue, Our Future and was implementing other programmes of the state or it was diverting the resources of the state to private ventures.

At page 14 of Our Benue, Our Future the 3 Senatorial Zones of the state stated their respective priority needs as follows:

PRIORITIES ZONES Senatorial Zone A Senatorial Zone B Senatorial Zone C 1 Agriculture Agriculture Roads/Agriculture 2 Roads Education Roads 3 Education Health Roads 4 Health Water Education 5 Water Water & Justice Water

TABLE 4

The total budgetary allocation for these priority sectors from 2008 to 2011 is:

PRIORITIES BUDGETARY ALLOCATION

2008 2009 2010 2011 TOTAL Agriculture 1,656,850,000 3,504,217,670 5,649,236,390 3,194,126,390 13,904,423,450 Roads (Works & Rural Development)

13,912,574,450 12,712,424,461 13,666,136,165 6,176,082,000 46,467,217,076 985,785,340 1,511,094,000 2,382,295,240 1,193,243,580 4,712,433,560

Education 3,442,850,950 1,524,861,740 3,124,066,696 2,481,829,690 11,573,609,076 Health 6,986,212,823 4,605,224,781 4,799,151,164 2,107,248,770 18,497,837,538 Water 8,424,370,000 8,088,636,520 7,001,097,344 2,751,556,340 26,265,660,204 TOTAL 121,421,180,904

TABLE 5

It is to be noted that the budgetary allocations in table 5 above is for the entire Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Works, Ministry of Rural Development and Cooperatives, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Water Resources and Environment. If the total allocation to these priority sectors as contained in OBOF is only N121,421,180,904 from 2008 to 2011 and the state got a total sum of N 213,508,176,550.51, then there is an extra sum of N92,086,995,646.51. This means that if all the projects contained in the budgets of the priority sectors were fully implemented, there could have been an extra sum of N92,086,995,646.51 for the other sectors.

Surprisingly, disappointingly, embarrassingly and mischievously, the same set of projects that were in 2008 to 2011 budgets are still the same sets of projects in 2012 to 2014 budgets.

Suffice to state that OBOF expired in 2011. Yet the state government is still implementing the programmes of OBOF up to 2014. From 2012 to 2013, the state government has realized the sum of N63,263,709,794 and N72,451,122,917 totaling N135,714,832,711. 2014 is the 6 th Year the state government will be implementing the programmes in OBOF. From 2008 to 2011 the government realized the cash sum of N 213,508,176,550.51, from 2012 to 2013 N135,714,832,711 totaling the sum of N349,223,009,261.51. The implication is that the government has expended N181,523,009,261.51 in excess of implementing the programmes of OBOF that were estimated to cost only N167,700,000,000.

In 2014, the state government is taking a bond to implement the same programmes in OBOF. In 2011 when 13 Billion was taken to implement the same programmes in OBOF, the sum of N70,780,101,970 was actually realized from the approved estimate of N71,350,730,760. This is more than 95% of actual collection over projected income.

POSERS

The questions that are begging for answers are:

1. Is the Benue State government still implementing the programmes in OBOF in 2014, that is, 3 years after its expiration?

2. Is the Benue State government still expending the resources of the state including loans amounting to over N349,223,009,261.51 to implement the programmes of OBOF that from the projections in OBOF required only N167,700,000,000 to implement?

3. What are the specific projects that have been completed by the Benue State government from 2008 till date from the gulping sum of N349,223,009,261.51 that has accrued to the state from 2008 to 2013?

4. What are the specific projects that the 13 Billion Naira was taken to complete and actually completed?

5. What are the specific projects that the 11 Billion Bond now approved by the House of Assembly going to be executed?

CONCLUSION:

In Section Five of OBOF with the heading “ COLLABORATION WITH CIVIL SOCIETY AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATIONS” the state government state as its goal as follows:

“To awaken the consciousness of organs of civil society as stakeholders in the conduct of governance with emphasis on partnership between government and the civil society in development efforts”.

In the Review of Past Efforts, the state government recognized the role of BENGONET as a coalition of NGOs in the state in these words

“A coalition of civil society groups has sponsored some bills in the Benue State House of Assembly…. BENGONET, the Benue NGO Network, has together with the Government, International Agencies and other stakeholders carried out serveral activities with a view to assisting in the reform process. In 2002, BENGONET, with the assistance of Partners for Development organized a training workshop on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Process for members of the civil society and government functionaries.”

BENGONET as a coalition of Civil Society in Benue State is committed to ensuring probity, transparency and accountability in the “conduct of governance” as encapsulated in OBOF. The Network is not interested and will never be interested in tarnishing the image and reputation of the state government as alleged by Dr. Cletus Akwaya, Special Adviser to the Benue State Governor on Media and Public Affairs in the Media.

We hope that as a partner in development of Benue State, our views about issues in the state should be considered objectively rather than calling us names and brandishing us “a partisan organization”.

It amounts to blowing hot and cold at the same time if in one breath, the state government will recognize us as a partner and in another breath as ‘a partisan organization”

Justin A. Gbagir, Esq. 
Principal Partner,
 Justin A. Gbagir & Co. Executive Director,
 Justice & Rights Initiative. 
The Chair, Benue NGO Network (BENGONET)
 +234 7038473765 gbagirjustin@gmail.com