Fayose, Others Should Return To Elementary School’ – Information Minister, Lai Mohammed

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has suggested that Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti and others kicking against President Muhammadu Buhari’s Treasury Single Account policy should return to elementary because they have failed to understand the workings of the policy.

“Those behind the rumour that a single company made N25 billion from charging one per cent of TSA funds that passed through the company’s software, may need to return to elementary school to get some lessons in arithmetic,” he said in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr Segun Adeyemi, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

“This is because in order for one per cent charge to fetch N25 billion, the funds accruing into the TSA must have reached N2.5 trillion.
Yet, the total amount of funds in the TSA to date is still much less than 2 trillion.

“More importantly, at the time the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ordered that all monies that were erroneously charged as ‘revenue’ be returned to the TSA Account late last month, the TSA had less than N800 billion.

“It therefore beggars belief that anyone could attempt to mislead the public by raising a false alarm that a firm made N25 billion in TSA charges.”

Mohammed appealed to Nigerians not to allow those who had been funding their lavish lifestyles and encouraging corruption, to the detriment of ordinary citizens and without bothering about national interest.

He said the accusation was to sabotage the laudable TSA programme with contrived lies, dangerous innuendoes and misinformation.

It would be recalled that Fayose , in a statement on Sunday, declared that he would not be part of the meeting the Federal Government was to hold with state governors on the TSA because the policy itself was a fraud against Nigeria and its people as it is aimed at recouping money spent on the last general elections by the APC, as well as raise money for future elections, especially the Kogi and Bayelsa States gubernatorial poll.

Fayose also asked the Federal Government to expose those behind REMITA so that Nigerians would know those “through whom the All Progressives Congress, APC, is siphoning Nigerian money to fund Kogi and Bayelsa States governorship election.”

He added that System Specs the company that manages TSA made N25 billion.

FG’ll Explore Mix Of Energy Sources To Attain Power Needs – Osinbajo

In order to achieve the electricity needs of the country, the Buhari presidency is considering a mix of energy sources, according to the vice president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN).

Besides working to improve power generation from the national grid, alternative sources of energy especially renewable energy are being actively pursued by the federal government, and the vice president has hinted that nuclear energy might also be in the mix.

In a statement issued yesterday by his senior special assistant on media and publicity, Laolu Akande, he said, “The long and short of it is that we definitely need a mix of energy choices because in the next decade, such a mix will be imperative.’’

In addition to the existing mix of hydro and thermal sources of power generation, Prof. Osinbajo disclosed that the federal government is equally working on the possibility of utilising other energy sources including the solar option.

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Governor Okorocha blames leakages for states’ poor funding

The Governor of Imo State, who is also the Chairman of Progressives Governors’ Forum, Chief Rochas Okoracha, has attributed leakages in government as one of the reasons why resources are not enough to service the states.

Also, the Governor of Zamfara State, who is also the Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Alhaji Abdul’aziz Yari, said the solution to the declining revenue facing most states lies in the diversification of the nation’s economy.

Both governors spoke at the two-day Internally Generated Revenue workshop organised by the NGF in Abuja on Monday.

Okorocha called for the fusion of culture into the nation’s political and economy lives, adding that “democracy which we don’t understand has further deepened our problem.”

He said, “We have enough resources to run the states but there are so much leakages. There are cultural challenges, no nation can grow above its cultural resources. Culture has a lot to do in our politics and economy. Let us develop our land and be less oil- dependent.”

Speaking with journalists shortly after he made his presentation, Okorocha said, “While we are looking at our IGR, which has its challenges, we should also look inwards and start to develop the resources of our land, which is mainly agriculture.

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N5,000 unemployment benefit starts in 2016

The Federal Government has started the process of fulfilling its promise to pay N5,000 monthly allowance to 25 million unemployed youths in the country with 2016 as the take-off date, The PUNCH investigation has revealed.

The All Progressives Congress, which defeated the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party in the March 28 presidential election, had promised during its campaign that if elected to the central government, it would pay N5,000 monthly to 25 million jobless youths as well as introduce a free school feeding programme.

A motion to compel the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to fulfil the campaign promise of paying the unemployed youths was recently rejected in the Senate.

Our correspondents learnt on Monday that the Federal Government had, however, commenced plans to start the payment of the allowance while it had also taken steps to capture the free school feeding programme in the 2016 budget.

It was further learnt that the government had saddled some officials with the task of ascertaining the number of the unemployed youths, who would benefit from the scheme.

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Non-viable Airports And Case For Privatisation

Concerns are growing over the state of Nigerian airports and the need for private sector involvement in the management of the airports for better service delivery, improved revenue generation, and increased contribution to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).

These concerns were further fuelled by a recent report which categorised the nation’s three most important airports as being among the 10 worst in the world.

From the N400 billion said to have been spent by the former minister of aviation, Stella Oduah, on airports remodelling, and another $1 billion being put into aviation infrastructural development by the Chinese Government to the N63 billion reportedly needed by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to build another runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in the nation’s capital, concerns have been raised among various strata of the public and reactions have greeted the reports.

While addressing the Senate ad-hoc Committee on Aviation recently, the managing director of FAAN, Mr Saleh Dunoma, said that most of the facilities and equipment at the airports were obsolete as most of them were acquired over 30 years ago. Dunoma was responding to questions from senators on reasons for the rating of the Port Harcourt International Airport as the worst in the world by the Canadian SleepingInAirports.net.

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