Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has reacted to a report by a House of Representatives committee indicting him for allegedly approving funds illegally. The house of representatives had indicted the governing board of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) chaired by Osinbajo over what it described as an “illegal approval” of five-point-eight-billion-naira emergency food intervention fund for the north-east.
In a statement released by his spokesman, Osinbajo said the approval of the fund was within his constitutional authority. He added that the approval became necessary because the federal government needed to “urgently” purchase stored grains for distribution to internally displaced persons (IDPS) in order to forestall acute food shortages in the affected States.
The vice president said the approvals were duly communicated by the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor of Central Bank, Director General of NEMA and the Minister of Finance for implementation.
He said the approval was based on a request raised via a letter dated the twenty-fifth of May, 2017, by Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, who served as facilitator of the national food security programme. The vice-president also said that the suggestion that the grains were never delivered to the target states is falsehood.
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