The Federal Government has approved N17.6bn as direct financial intervention in the cases of flooding currently ravaging many parts of the country.
While affected states would share N13.3bn according to the level of the flood’s impact on them, Federal Government agencies saddled with the responsibility of providing relief would share N4.3bn.
President Goodluck Jonathan disclosed this in a nationwide broadcast on Tuesday morning.
While commiserating with the victims of the floods, Jonathan said his administration was prepared to do everything possible to mitigate the impact of the natural disaster on the people.
For the purpose of sharing the N13.3bn government intervention, Jonathan said affected states had been categorised into four groups with the states in the first, second, third and fourth groups getting N500m, N400m, N300m and N250m each respectively.
According to the President, the states that will get N500m each include Oyo, Kogi, Benue, Plateau, Adamawa, Delta, Bayelsa and Anambra.
States that will get N400m each are Jigawa, Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarrawa, Taraba, Cross Rivers, Edo, Lagos and Imo.
Kwara, Katsina, Gombe, Ogun, Ondo, Eboyin, Abia and Rivers States will get N300m each while Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Yobe, Enugu, Ekiti, Osun, Akwa Ibom, Borno and the Federal Capital Territory will get N250m each.
Jonathan said as part of the financial intervention, Ministry of Works will get N2.6bn; the National Emergency Management Agency will get N1.16bn while the Ministry of Environment will get N350m.
He added that the National Commission on Refugees will get N150m while the presidential committee he set up on the disaster will get N100m.
Since the disaster broke out, the President said NEMA had so far spent N1.314bn to provide relief materials for the victims.
He added that the Ministry of Works on its part had spent N568m on the repair of collapsed bridges and construction of bye-passes while the Ministry of Environment also spent N95m on sundry relief efforts.
He said, “Over the past few weeks, unprecedented flood has ravaged many parts of our country rendering tens of thousands of fellow Nigerians homeless and causing massive destruction of properties, farmlands and infrastructure across the country.
“I wish to express our deep commiseration with all those who have lost loved ones, those who have lost their property as well all the affected communities and institutions.
“It is sad that this global phenomenon of devastating flood has come to Nigeria at this time.
“I want to reassure all Nigerians that the Federal Government is prepared to do everything possible to mitigate the impact of this natural disaster.”
He recalled that he had earlier set up a presidential technical committee to visit all affected areas with a view to properly assessing the impact of the floods.
He said copies of the interim report submitted by the committee had been made available to critical stakeholders including the leadership of the National Assembly as well as governors of the affected states.
He said the committee would continue to go round the country while himself and Vice President would also visit some parts of the affected communities.
Jonathan promised that whenever he receives the committee’s final report, the Federal Government would further initiate medium and long term measures to check future flood disaster.
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Source : punchng[dot]com
