As Nigerians continue to agonise over the deadly flood incident in Mokwa, Niger State which claimed lives of over 100 persons, a non-governmental organisation, Environment Watch- has attributed it to non-implementation of ministry of works’ 2025 budget.
The NGO decried the delay in implementing the 2025 budget five months into the fiscal year, insisting that the delay stalled works on drainage and other erosion issues in different parts of the country, noting that „this would have greatly mitigated the Mokwa flood disaster.“
Speaking during a visit to the IDP camp, the NGO‘s programme manager, Haruna Ndazogi, specifically chided the Minister of Works, David Umahi, for failing to commence the procurement process for critical federal projects captured in the 2025 budget.
He warned that unless concrete measures are taken, there would be more flood disasters in different parts of the country with the rains just beginning, “since most of these projects have not been accorded priority by the works ministry.”
“While information available to us suggests that other MDAs have started issuing contracts for 2025, Minister Umahi, for reasons best known to him, has refused to kick-start the process in the works ministry.
“We are worried that if care is not taken, we may be experiencing more and more flood disasters since roads, culverts, and bridges that would have been fixed had the ministry approved contracts from the 2025 fiscal year, are left in a state of disrepair“, he added.
Ndazogi said the NGO interfaced with some members of the national assembly who confirmed that they had captured some of the roads, bridges, culverts and drainages in the 2025 budget as their constituency projects, but the non-implementation is dragging things back.
The NGO wondered why the works ministry has yet to implement the 2025 budget and accused him of merely concentrating on the Coastal road and neglecting other critical projects across the country.
Similarly, the NGO accused the Works Minister of frustrating implementing the federal government‘s agenda in critical infrastructure, noting that ‚something concrete and urgent must be done to address the nation‘s infrastructure decay.
While urging the President to remove all the rotten eggs from his cabinet, the NGO said some officials of the present administration are sabotaging efforts to improve citizens‘ lives.
