Politicians, briefcase SMEs hijack UN intervention fund

If the startling revelations from the different stakeholder voices are anything to go by, then it may be correct to say that the various intervention funds deployed in Northeast Nigeria, including Gombe, Taraba and Yobe both at the federal, state and donor-agencies’ levels were doomed to fail.

The reason for this may not be farfetched: proper due diligence was not carried out.

The foregoing was the damning verdict as revealed at a two-day engagement on establishment of Acceleration/Innovation Zonal hub in Gombe organised by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goal (OSSAP-SDGs).

It was one of the rare opportunities for the stakeholders to bear their minds on issues bordering on fund transfer to SMEs to cushion the effect of Covid-19 on the people and maintain the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs by NARSAL, Japan UN, and Germany UN, among others.

The story of a beneficiary of the COVID-19 cash transfer, Hamadu (not real name) who purchased two motorbikes in one day sounds funny but it’s real. Hamadu’s dream of owning two motorbikes came true when he received an alert of N480, 000 in his bank account. Pronto, he went to make the purchase of his dream toys the following day. But he received the shock of his life a week after some night marauders robbed of his two motorbikes. The story of Hamadu is similar to that of Ali who also got the farmers Anchor Borrowers Programme loan and deposited N100,000 with Mai Shai to supply him plates of Indomie with eggs and tea everyday.

Other revelations were made in the course of the two days interface and discussion programme.

While commenting on the efforts, Dr. Sanni Yakubu Gombe recalled that he was engaged to conduct an impact assessment of the intervention loan given by NARSAL to the beneficiaries with focus on Gombe, Taraba and Yobe.

Over 800 beneficiaries of NARSAL were sampled, 34 for Japan UN intervention and 116 for Germany intervention.

“We were saddled with the responsibilities of going through Northeast states. We sampled three states namely: Gombe, Taraba and Yobe, out of the six North East States because of their similarities and peculiarities and out of these three states, we sampled randomly 1,600 beneficiaries. We had interviews with them, some through face to face, others through the telephone contacts that was given to us by the body that disbursed the money to them. Part of the discoveries was that it was only 46 out of these 1,600 that were able to utilise the fund as expected while the remaining 1, 554 used the money just for their own selfish interest.”

Lamentably, he said, majority of those who received the grant didn’t put them into productive use. “Some of the youths that benefited from that funds received up to N480,000 but one person ended up buying motorcycles. But unfortunately after a week thieves bugled his house and took away the two motorbikes. Another person bought wristwatch of about N380,000 while the clothes he is wearing is not up to N5000. So we have so many cases like that and that is why we are saying that in case of any other intervention there is need for change in modus operandi. The model used need to be channeled in such a way that face to face contact has to be done. We appreciate conditional cash transfer of the social intervention programme being done by the Office of the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs. That model used in identifying the elderly and the vulnerable is quite transparent and highly accountable but the experiences we had with these ones are so nasty and too bad. That is why we are calling for attitudinal change from our citizens and also the donor agencies should be sincere in trying to see that some of the bureaucratic bottlenecks are curtailed in such a way that the local people can easily benefit.”

Dr. Gombe blamed the failure of these COVID-19 relief funds on politicians who he allegedly accused of hijacking the programme.

“You know we are Nigerians, we have a way of trying to say we help our people in such a way that even if it is through corrupt practices and that is exactly what happened. Some of the beneficiaries are identified by the politicians and they influenced the disbursement of the money to them despite the fact that they know that they are not going to use it. It happened within the strata of government. So it may be correct to say politicians hijacked it,” he said.

Echoing similar sentiments, Malam Abubakar Baba said briefcase SMEs hijacked the UN intervention funds leaving the real SMEs operators stranded. “We can organise a sensitisation workshop of one or two days for them and even visit their industries for physical assessment. We have some SMEs employing 10- 22 employees but were not given any support from the government, yet they are paying multiple taxation.”

Mr. Malim Maron who represented the Bankers Forum said the problem is not from government, the donor agencies or selection processes but from all the critical stakeholders. “I had the opportunity of being part of a climate revision hub here in Gombe and youth came from all the six states of the North East with fantastic ideas on how to check climate change. After the engagement in Gombe, there was supposed to be a national engagement and a global engagement in the United States. After the engagement in Gombe, I don’t think any of the youths in the Northeast attended any of the engagement at the national and global levels. “

 (Courtesy The Nation: Excluding headline)