Leadership (Abuja)
Gloria Usman
7 January 2009
Abuja — A civil society group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has criticised the plan by the Federal Government to spend over N2b to buy, maintain and fuel power generators in 2009
The group said that the plan portrays the government "as insensitive, unserious and unwilling to tackle the haphazard and unreliable electricity services in the country, despite making this an important element of its 7-point agenda."
According to reports, the Presidency, the National Assembly and ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) plan to spend over N2 billion to buy, maintain and fuel power generators in 2009.
The details are in the budget passed by the Senate on December 17, 2008.
Among others, the details show that the Presidency will spend N27 million to fuel its generators, and N14.3 million to maintain them.
Other details include: the National Assembly (fuel, N233 million); National Assembly Office (fuel, N63 million), (maintenance, N57.2 million); the National Assembly White House, which houses the Chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives (N58 million for fuelling and N55 million for maintenance); the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) (fuel and maintenance, N25.8 million); and Police formations nationwide (fuel and maintenance, N110 million).
In a public statement dated 6 January 2009 and signed by SERAP's Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, the group said: "The government's plan to spend N2b on generators at a time millions of Nigerians are without access to regular electricity supply, and some are dying from the effect of the use of generators, has shown that the government is not genuinely committed to, and in fact, has given up on its oft-expressed commitment to address the persistent problem of unreliable electricity supply in the country."
"Spending so much money to supply generating sets to government offices while millions of Nigerians remain without access to regular electricity is discriminatory and amounts to abdication of responsibility.
The government's action also amounts to violation of Nigeria's international human rights obligations, under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," the organisation further argued.
The organization noted that "Government's persistent failure to address the problem is contributing to the deprivation of access to quality healthcare, adequate food, shelter, clothing, water, sanitation, medical care, schooling, and access to information for millions of Nigerians.
The lack of access to modern energy/electricity services is particularly detrimental to millions of Nigerian women and children."
According to the organization, "Without access to improved supply of electricity services, Nigeria cannot achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and ensuring environmental sustainability.
Access to uninterrupted supply of electricity is a basic human right, which is necessary for the enjoyment of other human rights such as healthcare, adequate housing and quality education.
Electricity offers neat, flexible and variety in usage to the end -use services that drives economic development and improves the quality of life."
"Instead of spending huge money on generators, the government should come up with a serious action plan with benchmarks, which will be faithfully and fully implemented to ensure access of millions of Nigerians to regular electricity services on the basis of equality and non-discrimination," the organization added.
The organisation called on "The Yar'Adua government to demonstrate its oft-expressed commitment to tackle the problem by seriously considering banning the use of generators in government offices, as a first step to banning the use, sale, rental, repair and importation of generators into the country.
This will make the government to sit up and confront the problem genuinely and comprehensively."
The organization also asked the government to "re-allocate the N2b budget on generators to ensure improved electricity infrastructure generation, transmission and distribution throughout the country.
In case the government fails or neglects to urgently do this, our organisation will have no options but to institute appropriate legal actions to ensure full compliance by the government with Nigeria's international human rights obligations and commitments".
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Leadership. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
