Federal, State Governments wasted N500b meant for ecological problems – Senate

The Senate on Wednesday disclosed that federal and state governments misused about N500 billion meant for redressing ecological problems in Nigeria.
The shocking revelation was contained in a bill sponsored by Senator Mohammed Hassan, titled: “An Act to Establish the Ecological Fund for the Purpose of Funding certain Federal Agencies dealing with Environment and Ecological Problems.”
Leading a debate on the motion, Hassan lamented that ecological fund has over the years been operated like slush fund, deployed for varying purposes according to the whims and caprices of the incumbent.
He said the purpose of sponsoring the bill is to combat the menace of ecological problems facing Nigeria.
According to him, the aim is to combat ecological problems through the Federation Account as a pool of funds that would be solely devoted to funding the menace.
Hassan said: “The utilization of the ecological fund, particularly since the return to civilian rule in 1999, has been embroiled in endless controversies that in most cases hinged on gross mismanagement.
“Hence, rather than serve as a veritable tool for addressing the myriads of the country’s ecological problems, the utilization of the fund embroiled in the endless controversies that is related to transparency.
“History avails us with case studies of how ecological funds were used to fund elections.
“Also, there have been reports of illegal withdrawal from Ecological Fund Account by the Ecological Fund Office for reasons not relevant to the objectives of the fund.”
Hassan said between 2003 and 2007, the Senate Public Accounts Committee reported that over N9 billion of Ecological Fund was not remitted by the Ecological Fund Office to the National Emergency Management Agency and the money has not been accounted for.
He said the objective of the bill is to ensure that Ecological Fund is applied solely for the purpose of environment and ecological problems.
He concluded that the bill has no financial burden on the Federal Government.
After exhaustive debate on the bill, it scaled into second reading and was forwarded to the Senate Committee on Ecology and Climate Change for further legislation.