Senate threatens to stop SURE-P allocation

The Senate, on Wednesday, threatened to henceforth stop appropriating fund to the Subsidy Reinvestment Empowerment Programme (SURE-P).

Senate Ad hoc Committee on SURE-P issued the threat, saying some ministers have persistently refused to honour invitations to them to render accounts of their stewardship in their various ministries.

Addressing newsmen, chairman of the committee, Senate Leader Abdul Ningi, particularly took exception to the failure of the Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolememen, to appear before the committee on Wednesday.

He said what the minister and his team did amount to crass lawlessness, adding that President Goodluck Jonathan had appointed wrong people into public offices.

According to him, neither the Minister of State, Alhaji Bashir Yuguda, nor the ministry’s Permanent Secretary showed up, after keeping members of the committee waiting for more than one and a half hours, and without any reason for their failure to turn up.

“A huge amount of money, totalling over N30 billion, was allocated to the Ministry of Works under the SURE-P. We accordingly invited the minister to render an account of the activities of his ministry under the SURE-P from 2012 to 2013.

“Today (Wednesday), we sat from 2.00p.m. till about 3.30p.m., waiting to hear from them. But neither the minister, his Minister of State nor the Permanent Secretary showed up till now.”

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