The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development says Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal was shifting blame when he blamed the Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, for the delay in distributing COVID-19 palliatives in the state.
Tambuwal made the claim on Tuesday while addressing residents of the state in apparent reaction to the looting of warehouses storing COVID-19 palliatives in many states.
He said that there was no case of hoarding of relief materials in Sokoto.
The governor said that the state got two categories of COVID-19 palliatives – one from CACOVID and the other from the Federal Government.
He disclosed that the distribution of the palliatives from CACOVID was delayed on the request of the coalition.
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Tambuwal added, “The other category were those items brought by the federal government through the office of the minister of disaster management, humanitarian affairs and social development, Sadiya Umar Farouk.
“The items were received on Oct. 17, precisely nine days ago. The little delay we had in distributing the FG palliatives was at the instance of various requests by the minister.
“She needed to be personally around when the exercise started. She made the requests five times before turning up.”
However, an official in the ministry said the minister should not be blamed.
“It is ridiculous for anybody to try to shift blame for his failure to the minister or the federal government. This is because neither the federal government nor the Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development dictate to states how to run the affairs.
“As far as we are concerned as a ministry, we did our best by ensuring the distribution of relief materials to all the states in good time for onward distributions to their citizens.
“If for any reason, the states failed to distribute the items to where necessary, the ministry should not be blamed for that,” Vanguard quoted the unnamed official to have said.