The National Assembly is poised to take punitive measures against any
erring state government that failed to properly utilize or diverted
federal government bailout funds meant to offset backlog of workers’
salaries in any state of the federation.
The Chief Whip in the House of Representatives, Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa,
who sounded the warning in Bauchi, explained that the National Assembly
approved the bailout funds for the federal government to give states that
have problems in the payment of workers’ salary.
“The fact is that investigative machinery has been set in motion to
determine the proper utilization or otherwise of the bailout funds by the
benefiting states is a clear indication that punitive measures will be
taken against defaulting beneficiaries of the funds”, he said.
Doguwa observed now that President Muhammadu Buhari has considered similar
gesture to states that have problems in education and health sectors. The
defaulting states are likely to miss out from the envisaged gesture.
He decried a situation whereby some state governments in the country have
failed to maintain or effectively run existing health and educational
institutions in their respective domains, saying healthcare services,
primary and secondary education have been bastardized in some of the
states.
To this end, Doguwa stated, any state that has been found in default in
proper utilization of salary bailout funds, the National Assembly will
regard the action by such a state as an attempt to derail the health and
education bailout gesture of the federal government.
Hon. Alhassan Doguwa called on Nigerians to bear the prevailing social and
economic problems bedeviling the country, attributable to dwindling
economic fortunes, and continue to pray for the leadership to salvage the
situation.