Flooding: Reps query NEMA DG on relief materials

JONAS EZIEKE, Abuja

 

The House of Representatives Committee on Ecological Funds has rattled the Director-General National Emergency Management Agency NEMA Mr. Ahmed Mustapha Habib over the slow pace of distribution of relief materials and mitigation of flooding to flood victims in many states of Nigeria many of which were badly hit by the recent flooding of the parts of the country.

 

The House Committee at a rescheduled investigative hearing had held the DG and other officials of the agency on the hot seat at an investigative hearing titled; “Need to Investigate the Total Consolidated Accruals and Utilisation of Ecological Funds” organised by the probe panel on Wednesday in Abuja.

 

The Committee which commenced the probe on Monday, November 7, 2022, had rescheduled the continuation of the hearing to Wednesday, November 16, 2022, when most of the invited heads of agencies of the federal government were absent.

 

At the rescheduled hearing, the heads of the National Emergency Management Agency NEMA, North East Development Commission NEDC, Federal Roads Maintenance Agency FERMA, National Agricultural Land Development Authority NALDA, Hydroelectric Power Development Commission HYPADEC, Federal Capital Territory FCT and Association of Local Government Employees of Nigeria ALGON among others were re-invited by the probe panel.

 

While the NEMA DG Mr. Ahmed Mustafa Habib made an appearance with the other officials of the agency, he apologized to the probe panel for his failure to attend the first investigative hearing on the issue blaming it on the urgency of the migration efforts put up by the agency on the most recent flooding affecting many of the states.

 

He said that the most recent flooding had been the most devastating natural disaster in the history of the country and added that a total of 612 persons had died and 3218 other persons were affected by the flooding in many states.

 

He further stated that 181,600 houses and 392,300 hectares of farmland were destroyed by the disaster.

 

On relief intervention and the mitigation efforts by the agency, he said that they received 12,000 metric tonnes of grains from the Presidency through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and distributed these materials to provide relief to all the victims across the 36 states and 774 local government areas.

 

He also said that he had directed the director in charge of relief to distribute the relief materials adding that he had made specific interventions to some affected states and some lawmakers including the senators and members of the House as well as other lawmakers at the state houses of assembly.

 

But most of the lawmakers picked offence to this report particularly on the issue of specific intervention to the House members and described the report as a huge lie and non-existent intervention by the agency.

 

A member of the House Committee Hon Johnson Oghuma (Edo, APC) said that the agency has not done any mitigation or provided relief materials to any victim of the flooding to any of the residents of the 33 communities affected in his home state.

 

He said that non of the NEMA officials spoke to him or the senator representing his area of Edo State saying that it pains him directly that the director of relief is not speaking to the panel on oath adding that there was no form of intervention on the flooding in Edo State by the agency.

 

Other lawmakers in the House panel as Hon. Preye Oseke (Bayelsa, PDP) Hon. Oriyomi Onajuga (Ogun, APC) also said that the intervention efforts of the agency on the flooding are not felt in their federal constituencies.

 

The Committee Chairman Hon. Isiaka who also expressed displeasure on the matter of NEMA interrogation in relief efforts in his native land in Ogun State said that no state of the federation is worst affected by the flooding.

 

He said: “there is no point supporting farmers with intervention funds if the farm produce is washed away by flooding. There is no point in building houses if they’ll be washed away by flooding.

 

“No state is mostly affected by flooding. If one person dies, it equates to 10,000 persons. Our women and youths are not lazy. On our part will continue to legislate on good legislations that will help address these natural disasters”.

 

He loathed inefficiency and threatened that members of the Committee who felt aggrieved on the issue may move to be forced to move a motion for a repeal of the establishment Act of the agency and the relevant laws may be repealed by the parliament.

 

 

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