Gbenro Adesina
The Chairman, Committee on Information National Orientation, Ethics and Values, House of Representatives, Hon. Segun Dokun Odebunmi has noted that poor budgetary allocation is responsible for the inefficiency of National Orientation Agency (NOA) and other Federal government media establishments in the campaign against coronavirus and others.
Odebunmi, who stated this while featuring on a radio programme in Ibadan stated that the National NOA with offices across the 774 local government areas of the country gets less than N100 million allocation annually.
Stressing that low budgetary allocation would prevent them from being effective, the legislator revealed that with the support of Mr speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, the annual budgetary allocation to the agency has been increased by N400million.
“Let me point it out that the problem is not limited to the agency alone, the Nigeria Television Authority, NTA, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, News Agency of Nigeria, NAN and other agencies are equally victims of low budgetary allocation. Their major challenge is finance and the minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammed has agreed to increase their budgetary allocation”, he added.
Odebunmi described the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme initiated by the Federal government to assist the needy at this trying moment of coronavirus pandemic as wonderful but condemned the process of its disbursement, which he opined needed to be reviewed.
He also condemned the method of public display of cash and disbursement to individuals on queue by the government agents and the well-meaning, describing it as barbaric.
“As I speak now, one from my constituents in Surulere /Ogo Oluwa has gotten the Federal government conditional cash transfer. I have been monitoring this programme for a while. This programm started in 2016 and only 14 local government were included in Oyo state. I am not satisfied with the way the corona virus pandemic prevention is being handled in Oyo state.
“The governor is handling the situation as if it is not a serious matter, unfortunately he was one of the victims, including some of the major stakeholders like UCH CMD and others. So, there is need for the state to be more proactive like Lagos, Osun, Kwara and other states that we share same boundaries. If Osun had not been able to handle the people who came from Abdijan seriously, they would have moved into my constituency which would have been bad for us all and would have caused a serious crisis in Ogbomoso, which will obviously extend to Oyo and Ibadan”, he concluded.
