Who is sure of SURE-P?

By Eze Onyekpere.

The sharing formula gives the Federal Government 41 per cent; the State and Local Governments get 54 per cent while the remaining five per cent is reserved for ecological funds. The 21-member SURE-P Committee inaugurated by the President had a mandate inter alia to determine, in liaison with the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the subsidy savings estimates for each preceding month and ensure that such funds are transferred to the Funds’ Special Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria; approve the annual work plans and cash budgets of the various Project Implementation Units within the MDAs and ensure orderly disbursement of funds by the PlUs in order to certify and execute projects; monitor and evaluate execution of the funded projects, including periodic Poverty and Social lmpact Analysis; and update the President regularly on the programme. The committee has a functional secretariat that is funded from its budget.

In the 2014 budget proposal, the federal SURE-P has a vote of N268.37bn made up of N180bn in expected inflow for 12 months while N88.370bn is the carry-over from 2013. Funds were also carried over from 2012 to 2013 in excess of N90bn. The excuse for carrying over funds in the first year of 2012 was that the programme commenced within the year and had its teething problems. But another carry-over of funds from 2013 to 2014 is inexplicable. Considering that a good part of SURE-P funds are invested as augmentation of ongoing infrastructure projects, it is unimaginable that the sum of N88.370bn is being carried over to 2014. Why are they being carried over? Is it about the absorptive capacity of the implementing MDAs or the contractors handling the projects? Is it possible the funds were not released and cash-backed to the implementing agencies when they needed the funds? For instance, the Abuja-Lokoja and the East-West roads are part-funded by SURE-P. Why is the programme carrying-over funds when the roads are still crying for attention?  And we have been told that it is funding that is preventing the completion of the East-West Road. The road and those under the Ministry of Works utilised only 37.6 per cent and 30.1 per cent of available funds in 2012. Something is simply not adding up. Clearly, these funds were only available on paper and may have been diverted. I wish the Ministry of Finance, Budget Office of the Federation and the Central Bank of Nigeria will come clean and tell Nigerians where this money is domicilled including the account number and details of the money in the account. If possible, Nigerians need a print-out of the details of the account. Alternatively, someone should tell us why these funds are not utilised for the budgeted purpose.

There are all sorts of wild claims by SURE-P and as soon as anyone who is interested in validating the claims requests information from SURE-P, he meets a brick wall. SURE-P is not even moved by a Freedom of Information request!  For instance, the location of the 500 primary health centres purportedly renovated and rehabilitated by the programme; the names and addresses of the thousands who have benefitted from the conditional grants scheme and the public works programme; the exact roads that the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency is renovating with the programme money, etc. The job creation scheme of SURE-P claims to have engaged 119,000 Nigerians and pays them N10,000 a month. Three thousand persons have been purportedly recruited from each state and the FCT including an earlier 8,000 from the pilot phase. This translates into N1.190bn a month and N14.280bn in a year. This is an incredible sum of money. We recall that Senator Abdul Ningi had cause during a public hearing in 2013 to demand on behalf of his committee, the FCT’s list of the 3,000 beneficiaries. But available information indicates that the list never got to the committee. Unless Nigerians insist and are appropriately informed, we may be condoning another monumental scam under the guise of creating jobs. The minimum the SURE-P can do is to devise a portal available to all Nigerians indicating the names, addresses, phone numbers and other contact details of these Nigerians. The portal should also include the details and locations of other projects. This is the only assurance that we have not been fooled again.

Looking at the 2014 budget proposals, the proposed specific expenses of N2bn for the Federal Ministry of Information-public enlightenment on SURE-P is frivolous and makes no economic sense considering that the ministry has a generous vote for sensitisation in its main budget. Also, the N1.2bn for the programme Board and N500m for monitoring and evaluation are on the high side. There is a vote for a nebulous Special Presidential Intervention in the sum of N12bn after the equally nebulous service wide votes. So, Nigeria has become so debased that budgetary projects can no longer be specifically named. It is now enough that the President wants money for his fancies.

At the level of states and local governments who control 54 per cent of the SURE-P vote, it is a clear case of mismanagement. The Federal Government somehow pretends to be interested in transparency and accountability. No such pretence exists at the state and local government levels. The leaders at those levels do not see themselves as accountable to anyone. Apparently, the civil society including the media has not turned enough search light on the states and LGAs. Even the federal appointed state level coordinators are evidently card-carrying members of the Peoples Democratic Party who have been accused of running the programme as a branch of the President’s re-election campaign. In Lagos State for instance, there are disagreements among the PDP faithful over the distribution of the “largesse”, with the allegation that the Bode George faction hijacked the entire process and resources.

The way the SURE-P funds have been managed is not in tandem with the promise we got at the beginning. This is not the results we were promised when the fuel subsidy was removed.  And evidently, what we get today in terms of dividends and treatment by our leaders could not have been a product of the democracy we fought for. Nigerians, wake up, “shine your eyes”, demand for accountability and transparency and avoid being raped repeatedly!

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PUNCH NEWSPAPER on April 7, 2014 by Eze Onyekpere