The Federal Government yesterday announced that it will pump N350 billion to revamp the economy and ensure new jobs are created in the for the masses.
The government’s plan was announced at the end a two-day National Economic Council (NEC) retreat held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the nation’s capital.
Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, said efforts had been put in place to ensure that the spending on the capital projects trickles down to all Nigerians.
Mrs Adeosun, in her paper at the retreat, said: “We are going to spend money and this will be done in a disciplined manner and in right places.
“The Federal Government has a platform and system of control in place to ensure transparency. Spending will not be reckless.
“We are pumping 350 billion Naira into the economy in the next one quarter to help the economy to bounce back. That has never happened in the history of this country”.
According to her, part of the money would be used to offset contractual debts.
With this huge spending, the minister believed that “companies that had laid off staff and those that had abandoned projects are going back to sites and the economy will bounce back”.
“Our priority is that the wages of workers will be paid. We have engaged the contractors to let them know that the payment of management fees has to wait, this is how to make the money to trickle down to Nigerians,” she told the gathering.
The Minister further urged state governments to take their destinies in their own hands by proactively driving revenue generation, saying “now is the time to put in place a robust revenue drive by the states”.
“There is need to have a business and commercial approach to revenue generation,” she emphasised.
Mrs Adeosun also stressed the need for the Nigerian government to look at data management, saying “nobody can succeed in revenue generation without the numbers. It is important to report accurately and understand the billings versus the revenue coming in”.
She told the gathering that the Finance Ministry had already strengthened the Post-Mortem Sub-Committee of the Federation Account.
“The big differences between the NNPC and the Federation accounts are now things of the past.
“We now run a transparent structure. We have appointed three professionals to help clean the system. They write formal reports and get formal responses to all the questions,” she said.
Speaking on the plans for the Customs service, the minister said the Federal Government had agreed to review the remunerations of the Customs Service.
“We look at the Customs and found out that it has one of the lowest salaries at least from their peer group. That is a problem. Here you have a custom officer being paid 50, 000 Naira monthly and you task him to collect duty of nearly two million Naira.
“This means we are looking for trouble. So we are working on better remuneration for the Customs.
“The other issue is the equipment being used by the agency. Their ability to scan containers is very important. Classifications of containers are faulty now because of the kind of equipment they use.
Ability to scan a container and know what is in it is limited,” the Minister stated.
Some other resolutions reached at the retreat which she read out to reporters were focused on increasing Internally Generated Revenue and fostering collaboration between Federal and State Inland Revenues to ensure there was an alignment.
The retreat was said to have been muted by the Nigerian Governors Forum to find a solution to the economic problems they had faced over time.
To solve the problems, the Chairman of the National Economic Council convened the two-day retreat.
Other resolutions reached at the retreat were read out by the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma.
The Governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano said a resolution was reached on the integration of trading in infrastructure projects and investing in the Nigerian people through the school feeding programme.
The National Economic Council also established two committees, one of them headed by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, to monitor the full implementation of the resolutions from the retreat, as well as provide a progress report on the implementation. Thanks for reading.
Ambode/Buhari Campaign Billboards Debts Leave Outdoor Ad Coys On The Brink Of Collapse
More than 70 outdoor advertising companies contracted to handle the Ambode/Buhari campaign billboards in Lagos are still waiting to get paid their dues from the APC, with practitioners revealing that they are enduring a choking debt burden.
“The companies that ensured that Buhari and Ambode billboards took over 95% of the available billboards in Lagos have not been paid up to 5% of their payments for the job,” some frustrated practitioners lamented to journalists in Lagos.
The outdoor advertisers said they were invited by the former LASAA MD, George Noah during the election campaigns to do the jobs but only one or two who insisted on being paid were paid partially, with more than 70 companies remaining in limbo.
“The new MD, Mr. Mobolaji Sanusi has refused to honour the agreement between us and his predecessor, yet his men have started clamping down on our members since around October last year, shutting down our billboards for non-payment of their own dues.
“He has also sent new bills for the year while the billboards are not working since he shut them down but we have explained that the APC billboard monies have not been paid to us by the former MD, George Noah who he claimed has been paid by the All Progressives Congress, Lagos.”
When pressed on why they have not met with Mr. George Noah over the matter, a member of the Out Of Homes companies said, “Our association has met with him but he is insisting that the APC is yet to pay him, all he keeps saying is that he is still talking to his principal but all we are asking for is payment for jobs we did.”
On why they have kept quiet about it till now, another interviewed member representing one of the affected companies said, “We hesitated from coming out till now because we don’t want to embarrass the government or the APC but we were advised by the current LASAA MD, to go after George Noah and the company he used to issue the media order, ‘Media Worth’. Thanks for reading.
Police Extends Deadline For Automated ‘Tinted Car Glass’, Other Licences
The Inspector-General of Police, Mr Solomon Arase, has ordered the extension of the deadline for the on-going re-validation of Tinted car glass Permit, Police Character Clearance and Firearm Licence from March 18 to May 31.
The directive is contained in a statement issued by the Police Spokesperson, acting Assistant Commission of Police, ACP Olabisi Kolawole, in Abuja on Wednesday.
It said that the extension became imperative to enable members of the public to seamlessly key into the electronic platform initiative of the Nigeria Police Force Central Information System (NCIS).
The statement stated that Arase directed all State Commands Commissioners of Police to ensure that nobody was exploited and extorted in carrying out the exercise.
It said that revalidation was free of charge and that those yet to complete the process should not be subjected to unnecessary harassment by policemen.
IGP reassured the public of the commitment of the Force to provide security to the citizens of the country, always.
It further enjoined them to continue to support and assist the Police in its constitutional task of safeguarding the nation. Thanks for reading.
Corruption and rubbish top agenda for unlikely Rome mayoral favourite
In the Rome envisioned by Virginia Raggi, who is vying to become the city’s next mayor, a new fleet of buses drive in delegated “fast lanes”, traffic flows seamlessly thanks to “smart” traffic lights, rubbish is picked up diligently, and public service contracts are carefully vetted and managed.
It may not sound like a particularly ambitious agenda for a major European capital. But for residents of the Eternal City, who know only too well the vast gulf that exists between the romantic view of the city and the everyday reality for people who live here – the overflowing rubbish bins, unreliable public transport, rampant illegal parking and overgrown public parks – it is nothing short of revolutionary.
“Our vision is of a city that is livable, first of all, which it is not at the moment, for all the Romans who live here and the tourists who … find themselves in front of a city that is devastated and very difficult,” Raggi said.
The insurgent 37-year-old lawyer and former member of Rome’s city council has emerged as one of the favourites in the election which is expected to be held in June, eight months after Ignazio Marino, the former Democratic mayor and transplant surgeon who promised to revive the city, was forced out following a scandal involving his expenses.
Former mayor Ignazio Marino promoting a bike scheme
If she wins, Raggi would not only be the first woman to lead the city but she would also score a significant victory for the Five Star Movement, the populist Eurosceptic party established by former comedian Beppe Grillo that now stands as the second most popular political party in Italy.
While Grillo’s M5S has long been seen as a protest party that was short on policy and more than a bit wacky, the ascendancy of polished politicians like Raggi across Italy marks an important turning point for the party and a sign that it might be moving beyond Grillo. It would also be a humiliating defeat for prime minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic party (PD).
Asked what she makes of the prime minister, himself a former mayor, Raggi did not hesitate in delivering her cool assessment: “[Renzi] is working for the banks and not the citizens.”
As for the other important man in Rome – Pope Francis – Raggi said she thought the Argentinian was probably a “Grillino” (derived from Grillo), ie a supporter of M5S’s views on environmentalism and stand against corruption. If elected, one of Raggi’s objectives would be to claim between €250m and €400m in allegedly unpaid taxes on the Vatican’s real estate holdings and other assets, which she claims have never been collected by the city’s administration for fear of taking on the church.
“I think that on this point, we could have a frank discussion,” she said, noting that the pope has raised the issue in the past.
In an interview with the Guardian in an office just a skip away from the prime minister’s residence, Palazzo Chigi, and in the middle of a race that has of late been dominated by a spat between rightwing rivals – about whether a mother could also be mayor – Raggi seemed delighted to talk up her three big priorities: mobility, transparency, and rubbish collection.
She rails against the particularly Roman phenomenon, “which practically doesn’t exist abroad”, of people who use public buses but do not pay fares (it is an honour system and checks are exceedingly rare).
“There need to be more controllers, and we’ll make it obligatory for people to get on in the front of the bus. We will do small things, of common sense, that have never been done,” she said.
“We have to bring legality back, something that in Italy, in Rome, isn’t there,” she said.
Raggi emphasises public transport: she wants to replace the city’s 15-year-old buses with a new fleet of hybrid electric buses and says she is not a fan of Uber, which she believes creates “unfair competition”. She is also seeking to reorganise the way lorries circulate the city, saying it is untenable for tens of thousands to be moving through Rome with only one or two packages to deliver.
But Raggi readily acknowledges that achieving anything in Rome will mean confronting the city’s rife corruption. While Rome was previously seen as a step above the unofficial capitals of organised crime in Italy – Sicily, Naples, Reggio Calabria – a neverending stream of scandals known collectively as “Mafia Capitale” has made it clear that almost every public service in Italy’s capital has been sullied by mismanagement and corruption.
Raggi’s response is for more transparency, more controls, and open data.
“There are staff in Rome who want to work honestly, heightening controls internally and externally,” she said.
It is an issue in which she clearly stands with her party leader, Grillo. But she hedges on other, controversial, views belonging to the party boss, who has been a cheerleader for Nigel Farage, among other anti-EU figures.
Asked whether she endorses his view that Italy ought to have a referendum on keeping the euro as a currency, Raggi said citizens ought to be able to “speak up” about the eurozone, but also acknowledged that Italy was better off in Europe than out of Europe.
“I think it would be difficult to leave Europe, but Europe needs to change,” she said.
While she defends a recent controversial move by Grillo in which he backed off a political agreement in which the M5S was going to support parental rights for same-sex couples as part of a broader bill on civil unions – the proposal had to be withdrawn – she said she personally supported rights for same-sex parents.
She also takes a different tone to Grillo’s sometimes xenophobic views on the migration crisis, saying Rome needed to more swiftly identify asylum seekers, but that the city ultimately had legal obligations to house migrants.
“We have to understand why these people leave – it is a war we all helped create,” she said.
For now, her candidacy has been clouded by a single controversy: her early work as an apprentice at a law firm of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s attorney, Cesare Previti, who was later convicted of bribing a judge.
She denounces the “debate and all this confusion”, saying it was an attack on “all category of lawyers”.
“The message it transmitted is that if you are a lawyer who defends a criminal, also the lawyer is a criminal. If you are a doctor that treats a mafiosi, are you a mafioso?” she said. Thanks for reading.
BREAKING: Senate Passes Controversial 2016 Budget
The Senate has passed the controversial 2016 Appropriation Bill presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015.
Presenting a report on the budget, on Wednesday, Danjuma Goje, chairman senate committee on appropriation, said that the budget was “full of controversy”, but that the senate would not want to delay its passage by adding more controversies to it.
More to follow..............Thanks for reading.
Brussels suicide bombers identified as police hunt suspect caught on CCTV
Two of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the twin Brussels attacks that killed at least 31 people on Tuesday have been formally named by prosecutors, as police searched for a suspect captured on CCTV at Zaventem airport.
The Belgian federal prosecutor, Frédéric van Leeuw, confirmed media reports that Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 29, detonated one of two devices that exploded at Zaventem airport, killing himself and 11 others and injuring more than 90.
His younger brother Khalid, 27, was responsible for a third explosion, just over an hour later in a metro carriage at Maelbeek station on the rue de la Loi, near offices of the European commission, van Leeuw told a news conference. At least 14 people died in that attack, with more than 130 wounded.
Van Leeuw said the two airport bombs exploded within seconds of each other at 7.58am, near the check-in desks of rows 11 and two in the main departure hall. Ibrahim el-Bakraoui was identified by his fingerprints.
But two others from a group of three men caught on a CCTV camera wheeling loaded baggage trolleys across the hall have not been identified. One of these men was the second airport suicide bomber, the other a suspect who survived after leaving behind a suitcase containing a “very large explosive charge” and who is being actively sought.
Belgian media have suggested the surviving attacker was Najim Laachraoui, but reports that he had been arrested were later retracted.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, which plunged the Belgian capital into a day-long lockdown, led to heightened security at airports across Europe, and drew swift and strong condemnation from other European capitals, the US and Russia.
Shortly after Brussels residents, EU staff including the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and members of the Belgian royal family observed a minute’s silence in memory of the dead, van Leeuw confirmed the death toll from the attacks stood at 31 but was likely to rise further, with 270 injured.
A taxi driver had come forward after recognising CCTV images of the three airport suspects as men he picked up from an apartment block and dropped off at the airport, van Leeuw said, adding that police had subsequently raided the building in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek and discovered 15kg of explosives, detonators and a suitcase filled with nails and screws.
A series of other raids in the same street had led to one arrest, the prosecutor added, and the discovery in a rubbish bin of a computer containing a statement from Ibrahim el-Bakraoui in which he wrote of feeling “in a rush, not knowing what to do, being hunted everywhere, not being safe, and if this goes on, ending up in a cell”.
Van Leeuw said the two el-Bakraoui brothers, both Belgian nationals, had long criminal records but had not so far been associated with terrorism. It has emerged since the bloody attacks in Paris last November that killed 130 people, however, that they were part of that terror cell.
One el-Bakraoui brother is known to have rented a flat in the Forest area of south-west Brussels that was raided by police last Tuesday, leading three days later to the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the only known survivor among the 10 Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers who attacked the Bataclan concert hall, Stade de France and a string of cafes and restaurants in Paris.
One of the brothers is also known to have rented a hideout in Charleroi in Belgium where two more of the Paris attackers, ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud and Bilal Hadfi, who blew himself up at the Stade de France, met before heading to the French capital.
One of the el-Bakraoui brothers is also believed to have provided ammunition and weapons for the Paris attacks, RTBF reported.
Laachraoui, 24, is also suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks. He reportedly travelled to Syria in 2013 and was previously identified by his alias, Soufiane Kayal. He was travelling with Abdeslam in September 2015 when their car was stopped at the Hungarian border with Austria. Also in the car was Mohammed Belkaid, who was shot dead by a police sniper in a Forest raid.
Laachraoui’s DNA was also found at another apartment used by the Paris attackers in Auvelais. near the central Belgian city of Namur, and at another suspected hideout in Schaerbeek. RTBF said he could have been one of the bombmakers involved in the Paris attacks.
Belgium raised its terror alert to its highest level in the aftermath of the attacks. The airport will remain closed on Wednesday and Thursday and the metro will be running a reduced service, but schools were opening as normal.
The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, who was travelling to Brussels on Wednesday, urged the EU parliament to authorise a full Europe-wide passenger name record. “It has waited too long to adopt this text,” he said. “It must examine and adopt it in April. It’s time.”
The suspects
Ibrahim el-Bakraoui
El-Bakraoui blew himself up at Brussels’ main airport. He and his brother, Khalid, were well known to Belgian police because of their long history of involvement in organised crime. They had clear links to the Paris attacks and were among the suspects on the run.
The second bomber at the airport.
Khalid el-Bakraoui
Khalid el-Bakroui was responsible for the explosion in the metro carriage at Maelbeek station on the rue de la Loi, which killed at least 14 people and injured more than 130. Like his brother Ibrahim, the airport bomber, he had a criminal history and links to the Paris attacks. He had rented the flat in Forest, south-west Brussels, that was raided by police last Tuesday and where DNA traces of Salah Abdeslam, the surviving Paris attacker, had been found.
Najim Laachraoui
Laachraoui was identified as a key suspect in the Paris attacks the day before the Brussels bombings. His DNA was found in two hideouts used by Paris attackers and also on explosive material, prosecutors have said. Laachraoui was travelling under an alias with Salah Abdeslam in September last year when their Mercedes was stopped at the Hungarian border with Austria. RTBF reported that he could have been one of the bombmakers in the Paris attacks. Thanks for reading.
Alleged N852m Fraud: I Won’t Honour Your Invitation, Fayemi Tells Ekiti Assembly
A former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has failed to appear before the State House of Assembly over allegations on misappropriation of N852 million Universal Basic Education Commission fund (UBEC).
The former Governor, now a serving Minister on Tuesday through his Personal Assistant, Tolulope Ibitola wrote the Assembly that he could not honour the invitation “due to prior scheduled state engagements”.
The Assembly had at its plenary presided over by Speaker Kola Oluwawole on March 9, in a resolution pursuant to Sections 128 (1)(2) and 129(c) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), ordered the Minister of Solid Mineral to appear before it on March 22.
He wrote, “The minister has however asked that I should draw your attention to the fact that all matters relating to his stewardship as Ekiti State Governor between October 16, 2010 and October 15, 2014 as well documented in his handover note, which was duly submitted to the government at the expiration of his tenure on October 15, 2014 as statutorily required.
“The minister will be pleased to respond to specific clarifications the House may wish to make further to your diligent examination of the handover note.”
However, the speaker said Fayemi could still be invited to defend himself over the UBEC fund, despite responding to the first summons of the House via a letter. Thanks for reading.
