By; SANI ALIYU, Zaria
The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has called for an immediate, independent, and comprehensive forensic audit of the 2024 Budget process to uncover any instances of corruption, misappropriation, or mismanagement and unfairness between constituencies.
This was contained in a statement issued by Comrade Mohammed Ishaq, acting National Publicity Secretary of the party and made available to journalists, which said that this audit should be conducted by a reputable and neutral third-party organization, with the findings made public to promote transparency and accountability.
The statement said, “PRP advocates for a complete overhaul of the Nigerian budgetary system which includes the the implementation of strict guidelines to prevent undue influence on budgetary allocations, the establishment of a centralized database for tracking all budgetary processes, and the introduction of stringent penalties for any violation of these guidelines.
According to the statement, the party strongly calls for stoppage of constituency projects as they have seen that it is prone to abuse, corruption and unfairness on how constituencies in the federation are being treated; and,
“All legislatures at sub National and National levels should be thoroughly trained on budgetary system which is to henceforth be driven by needs, fairness and budget implementation from the point of signing the budget into law should be open and each constituency should know as of right their projects and the contractor to executive same.
“On the Whistle Blowing, PRP find the action of the Senate President and the entire Senate not only morally wrong but legally offensive.
“While Senate President Akpabio who was accused by Senator Ningi of wrongdoing sat as a judge and a witness in the proceedings that culminated into the suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi.
“Akpabio presided over the proceedings in which Ningi was tried, convicted and sentenced. You cannot be a judge in your own case and Ningi has full protection of chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution of Nigerian as Amended particularly sections 36(1) and 39(1) of the Constitution and he should be given fair hearing and instantly be recalled”.
” PRP to Mr. President we heard you saying that there was no padding in the 2024 Budget and those alleging padding did not understand arithmetic. Sir the issues wrong with the 2024 budget as we have seen are more than padding”.
“There was unfair and unjust in the constituency projects allocations, there was absence of details on the budgetary provision of up to N3.7 trillion with no known control of the budget expenses; and; there were corrupt budget estimates such as costing of borehole at N193 million and N184million per street light. In our view you can begin the corruption fight of your administration by dealing with all the wrongs identified in the budget and correcting them”.
