Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has thrown its weight behind the resolution of the House of Representatives last Thursday that President Goodluck Jonathan either implements the 2012 Appropriation Act 100 per cent by September or face impeachment.
The CNPP in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu and made available to National Mirror, said that the resolution was “patriotic, germane and timely,” adding that “the violation of the Appropriation Act, especially when the money is there, is tantamount to violation of the social contract between the government and the people.”
The House resolution had disclosed that so far, the 2012 Appropriation Act had only been 30 per cent implemented.
The CNPP said that it is imperative that the Federal Government hearken to the lawmakers’ call because over the years, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Federal Government has, in spite of unprecedented oil revenue failed to advance the welfare of Nigerians, a development which it claimed brought about the Boko Haram insurgence, kidnapping and other social vices.
It said: “We are at a loss how the gross unemployment, dilapidated infrastructure and decadence of social services can be addressed without the implementation of the budget. Or is it the Boko Haram insurgence, as President Jonathan claimed, that is distracting the government from implementing the budget?”
Okechukwu said that the government has no excuse for not implementing the budget fully, since the price of oil, which in its wisdom, the government has pegged at $72 per barrel has been hovering between $90 and $100.
Recalling with nostalgia how the $43 billion saved in the Federation Account in the years preceding 2007 by former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, under the same guise of non-implementation and pegging of budget was fleeced off without any infrastructure to show for it, the CNPP said that: “Is it not a shame that during late General Sani Abacha’s regime when the oil price hovered between $15 and $18 per barrel, the regime’s project profile execution towers above that of the government of the day?”
Source: Ascology
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