EXCLUSIVE: NEMA Groans As Paucity of Funds Cripple Activities In Zonal Offices

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Friday, September 9th, 2016

By IGNATIUS OKPARA, Enugu

ENUGU NIGERIA (AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Lack of fund has completely crippled activities of the National Emergency management Agency, NEMA in the six geo political zones of Nigeria, as most of the offices, including that of south east and south- south zones, had not embarked on any programme since the beginning this year.

Checks by our correspondent revealed that the zonal offices have not received any subvention from its headquarters in Abuja, since the President Muhammadu Buhari, led administration came on-board in 2015.

Further Investigation by AFRICAN EXAMINER indicates that most of the regional offices, are almost becoming moribund as a result of the ugly development, just as its staff have been thrown into redundancy.

The unfortunate development according to a source close to the establishment, who craved anonymity with our correspondent, has “continued to make it extremely difficult for the zonal offices to discharge its constitutional role of tackling disaster related issues in parts of Nigeria.

The source said “can you imagine, since January this year, none of the zonal offices of NEMA has received a dime from the headquarters, and this has made it impossible for us to embark on our usual sensitization/ awareness creation on disaster.

“You know we mitigate disaster through constant awareness creation in communities, but because of the lack of fund issue, we have not been able to organise our usual town hall meetings and seminars on flood, erosion, fire among other disaster for more than six months now.”

“This unfortunate situation I must tell you, is seriously affecting Nigerian communities, particularly those prone to erosion and flood disasters.

When contacted, the Media and Public Relations officer of NEMA, Sani Datti, blamed the situation on the problem in the North East zone of Nigeria, where he said, the agency has been committing virtually all its resources to take care of the vulnerable, the Boko Haram internally Displaced persons IDPs.

He said: “sincerely speaking, not that NEMA has not been receiving its statutory subvention from the federal government as at when due, but our main challenge has been the problem in the North east, where we are taking care of the vulnerable, and it has been really overwhelming.”

“I must say that the federal government has really been living up to expectation in terms of releasing funds to NEMA, because we get our subvention directly from the ecological fund, and it has been consistent.”

According to the NEMA spokesman, “taking care of the IDPS in the North east region has not really been easy with the agency, because it is capital intensive, and that is what has been affecting the operations of our zonal offices.

Datti, added that apart from the North east challenge, the present economic recession facing the nation, is another major factor responsible for the unfortunate development.

He said: “Honestly, funding of Federal agencies depend solely on what central government generate and when you observe these days the revenues have drastically dropped.