The House of Representatives member representing Iseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/Iwajowa federal constituency, Hon. Shina Peller has revealed that he does not understand how the federal government’s 52 billion Naira cash transfer was done.
The first-term federal legislator disclosed this in a statement made available to OYOINSIGHT.COM on Wednesday.
In the statement, he asked, “If the Federal Government claims that 2.6 million households have benefited from the N20,000 palliatives, does that imply that 52 billion Naira was shared amongst Nigerians?”
He stressed further that if the Federal Government had truly disbursed such a huge amount of money and he is still getting loads of calls and pressure from his constituents about palliative then the government’s strategy is not right and there is the need to formulate a better one.
“The MHR (Member House of Representatives) is a bridge between the FG and the people, but due to the failed structure of our Nation, people are misinformed and frequently look up to lawmakers as executives believing there’s a budget for them to be used to cater for all their individual needs.
“Well, it’s hard to understand how N20k was distributed to 2.6m households. So, I reason that a more beneficial and economical approach would have been used to distribute the money, especially via Local Government Areas,” he said.
He also noted that if the Government had given at least N10million to each of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria. It would have cost the federal government N7.7billion which is N44billion lesser than the N52billion it claimed to have spent.
“For the sake of practicality, let’s break this down using this simple example, I represent 4 Local Government Areas in my Federal Constituency namely ISEYIN, ITESIWAJU, KAJOLA, IWAJOWA LG areas of Oyo State – If I supervise the distribution of N10 million to 500 people at N20k per head in a Local Government Area. It will be more cost-effective and the impact will trickle down.
“And for accountability, the list of all beneficiaries and their account numbers would be pasted on a notice board at the ward level. Because every LGA is divided into wards. It takes nothing to paste the list of about 50 beneficiaries in every ward in the country.
“I have a total of 42 wards in my Federal Constituency and I should be able to give a report of the beneficiaries per ward. Also, the FG through the ministry can do a direct transfer to the beneficiaries on the list which also must be pasted at every ward in the country and give us a report with transfer receipts.
“If the same is replicated by all members of the House of Representatives the impact would be felt than FG distributing 52b to 2.6m households that can’t be verified,” he added.
