Following the claims by the presidency that the government is experiencing paucity of funds, the House of Representatives have called out to President Goodluck Jonathan and the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to desist from playing politics with State government statutory allocations.
Chief Whip of the House, Hon. Samson Osagie, said the call is in a bid to prevent an unexpected collapse of the economy of the state government.
The states have been lamenting over the non-remittance of their three-month due statutory from the Federation Account.
Osagie, noted that the members of the National Assembly have expressed worries that states did not get the statutory allocations despite “our oversight shows that revenue targets have been met and surpassed”.
He said: “We don’t want to accept any argument of paucity of funds as field reports from our oversight shows that revenue targets have been met and surpassed.
The law makers insisted that there had been improved revenue from both oil and non-oil sources urged the State governments to promptly seek an order of mandamus to compel the Finance Minister to release the allocations.
“We will not fold our hands and allow the Federal government to castrate our states of their entitlement from the Federation Account in order to make state governors pliable to the PDP government ambition to hold on to power beyond 2015”, Osagie assured.
The presidency had insisted recently that the “economy is doing well” while insisting that allegations are mere gimmicks to discredit the federal government despite the economy is being managed by internationally reputable technocrat led by the Finance minister.
But the states are being owed N336 billion, with the N75 billion being the balance of the July 2013 arrears, N121 billion from June augmentation and over N90 billion as July augmentation.