The group believes that the National Assembly has a significant role to play in preventing flood disasters in communities across Nigeria and urges lawmakers to take proactive measures to address the impending flood challenges.
This call comes in the wake of Amnesty International's appeal to the Federal Government, urging them to take concrete steps to prevent a recurrence of last year's flash floods, which claimed the lives of over 612 people nationwide.
The Good Governance Initiative, a Civil Society Organisation, has also made a similar call, criticizing President Bola Tinubu for requesting the National Assembly to amend the 2022 supplementary appropriation act to allocate N500 billion for subsidy removal.
In response to the president's request, it is reported that the lawmakers significantly revised the act and reduced provisions earmarked for flood control.
According to a copy of the amended budget seen by our correspondent, only N10 million each was allocated to three road projects in Nasarawa. Similarly, N10 million each was allocated for the rehabilitation of Idah-Nsukka Road, section IV, and section V of Kano-Maiduguri Road, as well as Augie-Bubuche Road in Kebbi state.
The Critical Stakeholders group, represented by Coordinator Godwin Ezenwata, expressed their concern in a statement issued in Abuja. They expressed that the National Assembly's decision to alter the 2022 supplementary budget, which originally included substantial provisions for flood control infrastructure, is a disservice to the nation's efforts to mitigate flooding.
The group appeals to the president to halt the ongoing amendment process and emphasizes the necessity for equal distribution of the N180 billion, as many states are in need of projects and are preparing for potential flood disasters.
“This was a budget that had a provision of about N700bn but slashed to a paltry N185bn out of which lawmakers shared the projects with the sum of N50bn allocated for two projects in Jigawa State while other projects of similar importance were allocated just N10m,” he lamented.
The group, however, noted that contracts for most of the erosion control projects have been awarded with works at advanced stages of completion.