Senate president, Ahmed Lawan has expressed his disappointment at how donations made towards the fight against the novel coronavirus are being handled.
He made this known during a meeting between the leadership of the National Assembly and members of the Task Force on COVID-19 headed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, he said:
“I believe that we face one critical challenge today in our fight against COVID-19. We have donations made by various organisations, corporate bodies and so on but it is my candid opinion that there’s no coordination”
“The corporate Nigeria, as I was told, as at yesterday (Wednesday), had gathered N22bn, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, I was told, had $28m, the CBN and the banks, I don’t know how much they have. The National Assembly, the ministers and so many individuals and institutions have also made donations.
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“I believe we must have a central body and not the PTF nor the corporate groups should receive and manage the funds but based on what the Constitution provides for.
“Where everybody is just collecting and spending, I think it’ll lead us in a very bad shape. When people contribute their funds, they want to see such funds properly utilised. They want to see efficiency. They want to see transparency. They want to see accountability and of course, probity in what the funds are used for.
“There could be duplication, working across purposes. At the end of the day, there’ll certainly be inefficiency in the application of such resources,” Lawan said.