The House of Representatives yesterday mandated its Committee on Civil Societies and Donor Agencies to investigate all grants and assistance received by Nigeria, as part of efforts aimed at plugging leakages that aid corruption.
The lawmakers made this decision after adopting the resolutions of a motion moved by chairman of the committee, Hon Eseme Eyiboh.
Leading the debate on the motion, Eyiboh expressed concern about the uncoordinated manner in which foreign aids and grants were handled, and expressed the need to properly monitor the receipt and application of such funds.
He noted that in view of the security situation in the country, it was even more important now to ensure that destination and purposes of such funds were tracked to discourage any form of unhealthy sponsorship.
The former spokesman noted that unlike other countries that enjoyed such grants, Nigeria had no development-aid data base to serve as a veritable source of tracking such funds.
The lawmaker also condemned the practice where donor agencies dealt directly with ministers and state governments without consultations with the National Planning Commission (NPC), the coordinating organ of all donor and grant projects in the country, even as he pointed out? that a good portion of the funds was either duplicating, complementing or even distorting government’s budgetary projections and often times used without adequate legislative oversight.
Highlighting why aids and grants must be monitored, Eyiboh disclosed that some agencies bid for international contracts and trade with money received as aids on the foreign exchange market.