Tag Archives: Failed

2016 Revenue Projections Failed- FG

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Over half of this year’s capital projections have failed due to shortfall in expected revenue, the Federal Government revealed yesterday.

The Federal Government budgeted about N1.8 trillion for capital projects in 2016 but only N753.6 billion was released as at October, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma said yesterday.

Government had expected that the N6.06 trillion budget would help reflate the economy but it suffered setback due to several factors.

Presenting the 2017 budget details yesterday, Udoma said pipeline vandalism and militancy in the Niger Delta as well as low global crude oil prices affected the implementation of the 2016 budget.

He said the 2016 budget, which was predicated on oil production of 2.2 million barrels per day with 38 dollars per barrel and exchange rate of N197 to a dollar, fell short of all revenue projections.

The minister said the budget did not benefit much from the slight excess revenue   from increase in global crude oil prices above government’s projection, as militant activities forced down daily outputs.

Udoma said: “The Federal Government’s 2016 revenues have been low because of the sharp decline in oil production. In particular, the revenue target for January to September 2016 was N2.8 trillion as against N2.2 trillion realised during the period.

“The projected independent revenue was N1.1 trillion as against N0.2 trillion realised during the period. The projected revenue for Custom was N0.3 trillion as against N0.2 trillion realised. The projected non-oil tax receipts for the first to third quarter of 2016 is N0.8 trillion and only N0.5 trillion was realised.”

To support funding of the 2017 budget, the minister said President Muhammadu Buhari had  set up a cabinet committee that would  devise innovative and creative ways to raise additional revenues from the oil and other sectors.

He said the report of the committee would be ready in time for the National Assembly to take into account in considering the budget in 2017.

“We must maximise the resources we can generate from the oil and gas sector. We cannot determine the price of crude oil, but we can engage more extensively with the communities and people of the Niger Delta to minimise disruptions to oil production,” he stated.

He said in order to get out of the current recession, the government must find the resources to spend on infrastructure and reflating the economy.

According to him, “This spending will help to stimulate and attract the private sector capital and spending. This is what the 2017 budget proposals seek to do.

“We should not allow ourselves to be discouraged by those who say we can’t find the money to fund the spending required to implement this budget.”
Read More: dailytrust

How Nigeria’s N53 Trillion Budget Of 18 Years Failed- Report

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The controversy over performance of the 2016 budget is just the latest in a series of government’s failed efforts at infrastructure building in the last 18 years despite ambitious budgets totaling N53 trillion within the period.

The nation’s yearly budget, which started from a modest expenditure plan of N948 billion ($3.2billion) — apart from supplementary requests — in 1999, consistently grew to N6.06 trillion ($19.9 billion) this year. The Federal Government plans to spend more than N7 trillion next year.

Experts have said that the combination of frivolous and fictitious heads and duplication of items in budgets have remained major challenges, leading to poor performance, the huge budget provisions notwithstanding.

Besides, high recurrent votes, which partly was paid out to “carefully crafted ghost worker scheme”, non-implementation of capital votes as planned and abandonment of projects after mobilization, helped to bring the country down.

Out of the N53 trillion, the country has budgeted N33.2 trillion in the last seven years, with recurrent expenditures averaging 72 per cent, leaving 28 per cent for capital votes.

But going by the projections of the stakeholders, an average of N900 billion yearly has been made in the last 17 years, while the recent fall into recession showed that it was not really invested.

An economist and fiscal governance campaigner, Dr. Uzochukwu Anakom, while speaking on the 2017-2019 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, noted that the shoddy work depicts how budgets over the years were used to under-develop the country.

“The macroeconomic targets and figures make no sense to an average Nigerian and can be subject to as many interpretations as there are Nigerians. It commits the government to nothing.

“It raises several questions- what is the inflation target in the next three fiscal years? Will interest be in the single or double digits for it to be consistent with economic growth that can move Nigeria out of recession? Essentially, there are no projections for interest rate and lending to the economy.’’

The immediate past Director-General of Bureau of Public Procurement, Emeka Eze, said that the number of government projects currently abandoned across the country stood at 19,000 as at May this year.

He said that besides duplication of office buildings, personnel and overhead cost, there was the tendency for each agency of government to assert its authority in procurement process.

The result, according to experts, has been poor execution or outright non-execution of projects after mobilisation, as well as over-pricing of projects, after delays in preparation and presentation, inconsistencies in timeframe and questionable figures.

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http://guardian.ng/news/how-nigerias-n53-trillion-budget-of-18-years-failed/

I Started Acting After I Failed JAMB, Watch Mercy Johnson’s Biography

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Ace Nollywood actress and celebrity, Mercy Johnson, reveals her morning routine to her fans. Who would have thought that the nollywood star wakes up as early as 5:30am, talk less of cooking for her husband. Well, she revealed that she does her cooking herself and dresses the kids to school all by herself. She revealed these and more on her Instagram page. The actress also revealed that she began acting after she failed JAMB. Watch her biography below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKTQ9_cO18w&feature=youtu.be

 

Turkey Failed Coup Of July 15 Cost Turkey Close To $100b

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Bulent Tufenkci, Turkish Customs and Trade Minister, said on Tuesday in Istanbul that the failed coup of July 15 has cost Turkey at least 99.9 billion dollars in damages.

He said that the damages include destroyed buildings, military equipment, decline in orders abroad for goods and a drop in tourism. Tufenkci said it was so unfortunate that the coup plotters had tried to create an image that Turkey is a “third world country.

The minister said photos of tanks on the streets during the night of the putsch attempt were posted all over the city. He, however, also noted resilience in the local economy, including the quick reopening of the stock exchange.

“The lira has also recovered some of its loses. “During the peak of concern over the coup, the lira had dropped from about 2.87 to the dollar to 3.09. It is now trading at just below 3 to the dollar,’’ he said.

Tufenkci noted that the standard and poor rating by agencies downgraded Turkey after the coup, citing concerns not only over the economy itself but also checks and balances. The minister announced that Turkey is currently in the middle of a 90-day state of emergency.

Credit: Vanguard

Mass Arrest After Coup Failed In Turkey

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Some 2,839 soldiers, including high-ranking officers, have been arrested over an attempted coup that is now over, says Turkey’s PM Binali Yildirim.
In a night he called a “black stain on Turkish democracy”, he said 161 people had been killed and 1,440 wounded.
Explosions and gunfire were heard in Ankara, Istanbul and elsewhere overnight and thousands of Turks heeded President Erdogan’s call to rise up against the coup-plotters.
It is not clear who is behind the coup.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed a “parallel structure”, in a clear reference to Fethullah Gulen, a powerful but reclusive US-based Muslim cleric he accuses of fomenting unrest.
However, in a statement, Mr Gulen rejected any suggestion he had links to the events, saying he condemned “in the strongest terms, the attempted military coup in Turkey”.

Credit: Punch

Youths Attack Lawmaker Over Failed Promises

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The member of the All Progressives Congress representing Awe-South state constituency at the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, Mr. Yahaya Rilwanu, has been attacked by some youths who alleged that he did not deliver the dividends of democracy to them.

The youths were said to be APC members from Ribi town.

It was gathered that a fight broke out between the supporters of the lawmaker and the angry youths who demanded the dividends of democracy from the lawmaker.

The crisis allegedly followed an altercation between one of the youths on the entourage of Rilwanu and one of the Ribi youths. Rilwanu, who confirmed the attack, however, said the youths were merely expressing their grievance.

He said, “What happened was not really an attack. It was one of my political rivals who want to contest in 2019 that went and induced some youths in the area to attack me.”

One of the youths on the entourage of the lawmaker sustained an injury on the head even as it took the intervention of some elders of Ribi to stop the fight from escalating.

The angry mob accused Rilwanu, who is popularly known as Equity, of not providing them with the dividends of democracy which he promised during his electioneering.

“No single borehole, school or any structure put in place by Rilwanu in any of the wards of his constituency. We regret voting him into office,” one of the youths lamented.

It was learnt that a similar attempt to attack him in Azara where he hails from was stalled by the intervention of some elders in the town.

A member of the APC from Azara, Mr. Adamu Abubakar, who confirmed the incident to our correspondent, said that a meeting was held between some selected elders of the community and Rilwanu – with a view to making him live up to his electoral promises.

Credit: Punch

Panama Papers: Why I Failed To Declare My Wife’s Assets- Saraki

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Last September the CCB slammed false asset declaration charges on Mr. Saraki, accusing the Senate President, among other things, of failure to declare his assets in full.

Under the code of conduct law, a public office holder is required to declare his own assets, those of his wife as well as assets in the names of his children below the age of 18.

The Senate President maintained that he did not fail to declare assets belonging to his wife in secret offshore territories, adding that he, in his different asset declarations, included properties owned individually by himself and his wife.

“The property in question forms part of Dr Saraki’s wife’s family asset,” Mr. Saraki said. “It is public knowledge that Mrs. Saraki comes from a family of independent means and wealth with numerous and varied assets acquired over decades in family estates and investments

“Furthermore, the law only requires a public officer to declare both his own assets and those held by his spouse and his children under 18 years of age. The law does not require a public officer to declare assets held by the spouse’s family.

“It is not expected by the law that a public officer should declare such assets held in the spouse’s family estate. Indeed, the Code of Conduct form does not make provision for declaration of spouse’s family assets,” he stated.

Indeed, Toyin Saraki hails from the rich and famous Ojora family of Lagos. She married Bukola Saraki in 1991.

The hidden properties in offshore territories the Senate President failed to declare were acquired in 2004 and 2011 respectively.

They are not part of the Ojora’s family estate and were not acquired through inheritance.

They are owned by Mrs. Saraki, as shown in the offshore documents obtained by this newspaper.

Credit: PremiumTimes

How Ekweremadu Others Withdrew N8 Billion In Failed Constitution Amendment- Report

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Fresh details have emerged on how members of the National Assembly Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution withdrew N7.75 billion purportedly to amend Nigerian constitution.

A report by Premium Times had last week exposed how the federal lawmakers collected the money in tranches to purportedly alter the document between 2011 and 2015, but which former President Goodluck Jonathan refused to sign into law.

While the 49-member Senate Committee on Constitution Review led by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, withdrew a total N4,500,000.00 for the exercise, the 53-member House of Representatives Committee headed by the former Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, spent N3,250,000,000.00.

The documents, exclusively obtained, also showed that the Committee withdrew money from its account few days before the 2015 general elections. The presidential and National Assembly elections held on March 28.

While on March 2, it withdrew N83.33m, it withdrew the same amount 21 days later, precisely on March 23. Yet, on April 13, two days after the governorship election, it withdrew another N83.33m.

The fresh documents exclusively obtained which exposed bank transactions showed that the two committees transferred various sums of money from two National Assembly accounts – 321/212/606/1/1/0 and 321/212/606/1/1/3 domiciled in Guarantee Trust Bank to their own accounts in different banks.

While the House Committee transferred funds to its account in Zenith Bank, its counterpart in the Senate transferred monies to its three accounts domiciled in Bank PHB (now Keystone Bank), Oceanic Bank (now EcoBank) and United Bank for Africa.

According to the documents, the House Committee transferred to its Zenith Bank account N500m on December 16, 2011; N500m on May 17, 2012; N250m on August 6, 2013; and N250m on November 11, 2013; N250m on February 20, 2014; N250m on May 27, 2014; N250m on August 21, 2014; N166.5m on a date not specified; N83.5m on December 5, 2014; and N83.33 on March 2, 2015.

The committee, on different occasions, also withdrew huge amounts in cash, serially violating Nigerian money laundering law.

Part 1, Subsection 1 of the Money Laundering Act 2011 provides that “No person or body corporate shall, except in a transaction through a financial institution, make or accept cash payment of a sum exceeding- (a) N5,000,000.00 or its equivalent, in the case of an individual; or (b)N10,000,000.00 or its equivalent in the case of a body corporate.”

It withdrew N250m on October 29, 2012; N250m on May 8, 2013; N83.33m on March 23, 2015 and another N83.33m on April 13, 2015.

The Senate Committee, the documents revealed, transferred the sum of N125m on April 21, 2010 to Bank PHB; N250m on June 10, 2010 to Oceanic Bank; N125m on a date not specified; to Oceanic Bank and N250m on October 13, 2010 to Bank PHB. The transactions were made before the Committee was inaugurated in the 7th Assembly in 2011

It also transferred N250m on a date not specified to Oceanic Bank; N250m on February 9, 2011to Bank PHB; N500m on December 16, 2011 to Bank PHB; N250m on May 17, 2012 to Bank PHB; N250m on July 23, 2013 to Keystone Bank, N250m on November 5, 2013 to Keystone Bank; N250m on February 5, 2014 to Keystone; N250m on May 22, 2014 to Keystone; N250m on August 18, 2014 to Keystone; N166.6m on November 25, 2014 to Keystone; N83.4 on December 5, 2014 to Keystone; and N83.33m on February 27, 2015 to Keystone.

It further withdrew N250m on April 20, 2012; N250m on February 27, 2013; N250m on May 8, 2013; N83.33m on March 17, 2015; and N83.33 on a date not specified, in cash.

This again was a clear violation of Nigeria’s money laundering law.

Credit: PremiumTimes

Oshiomhole, Sylva In Words Battle Over Failed Bayelsa Governorship Primaries

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The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday cancelled the Bayelsa State governorship primary election held on Tuesday.

The election, held in Samson Siasia Stadium in Yenagoa, the state capital, was purportedly won by a former governor of the state, Timipre Sylva, in a controversial manner.

The Chairman of the Election Committee, Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State said he was held hostage by thugs allegedly led by the former governor of Bayelsa State and supported by the police, who insisted that the primaries be conducted without proper accreditation.

However, Mr. Sylva, in a swift reaction described claims by Governor Oshiomhole that he truncated the governorship primary election as a deliberate act of mischief.

He noted that though Governor Adams Oshiomole was the Chairman of the Election Committee, the election which led to his emergence as the flag bearer of the party was free, fair and without violence.

Mr Sylva alleged that the Edo State Governor never wanted to conduct the primary as scheduled and cannot really say anything about the primary election because he had left the venue at the time voting commenced.

He added that Mr Oshiomhole set the process in motion for voting to commence before he excused himself on the grounds that he was going to eat and he mandated other members of the committee to carry on without him.

The National Chairman of the party, John Oyegun, said that a new date for the election would be announced soon.

“The primary has been rescheduled. It had to be called off due to security challenges,” he said.

Read More: channelstv

Former Rivers Deputy Gov. Says Amaechi Failed To Settle Him With Parting Gifts After Tenure

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The immediate past deputy governor of Rivers State, Tele Ikuru, has accused his former boss and state governor, Rotimi Amaechi, of maltreating him despite his contributions to the government.

Mr. Ikuru, who quit the ruling All Progressives Congress in Rivers State at the twilight of the administration, said Mr. Amaechi denied him parting gifts and money when the government finally came to a close in May.

He said this happened despite his contributions to the state, part of which was returning state funds and saving an estimated N100 billion for the state.

Speaking during a Thanksgiving Service at St. Simons Anglican Church, Ikuru-Town in Andoni Local Government Area, Sunday, Mr. Ikuru said the thanksgiving service was to thank God for his grace and faithfulness to him, his family, and friends during the eight years of service to the state.

“I served this government for seven years and seven months under Amaechi, because I was with Omehia for 5 months,” Mr. Ikuru said.

“At the end of the seven years and seven months Amaechi did not think that I deserved any parting gift in spite of the fact that in the course of this administration, by reason of the office I occupied, I returned several monies to him valued over two billion Naira cash at different times during one work or the other.”

In March, Mr. Ikuru stunned Mr. Amaechi and the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State when he defected to the Peoples’ Democratic Party six days to the general elections.

Announcing his defection at the time, Mr. Ikuru had described the APC in the state as a party of rebels, insurgents, and anarchists clothed in robes of pretence and deceit.

“Ever since, as the true nature and motives of APC are unveiled, I have continued to twist and turn in extreme mental and emotional agony,” he had said.

“The more I struggle to belong, the more the Rivers man in me rejects the APC.”

On Sunday, Mr. Ikuru stated that his contribution to Mr. Amaechi’s administration saved Rivers State “not less than a hundred billion Naira” over the period.

“At the end of the seven years and seven months, my boss left me hard and dry, nothing and no penny to go home with,” he added.

Read More: premiumtimesng

Why Patience Jonathan Failed To Attend Buhari’s Inauguration

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The absence of Patience Jonathan from the inauguration ceremony of President Muhammadu Buhari has raised different questions among Nigerians.  Mrs Jonathan, unlike other wives of Nigerian leaders was conspicuously absent from the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Many have said that Mrs Jonathan who was last seen with her husband at the inauguration dinner which heldThursday night had through her body language showed her displeasure over her husband’s outster by the current President as she never looked at the direction of President Buhari who shared the same high-table with her throughout the dinner.

However, DAILY POST has gathered that it took the intervention of friends and family for the ousted First Lady to have agreed to follow her husband to the dinner. Her reason, according to a presidency source was that she may not be able to control her emotion as it’s painful giving up power just after one term in office.

The source further disclosed that Mrs Jonathan broke down in tears after the dinner last night and that could have been responsible for her absence from Friday’s inauguration as Mr. Jonathan may not want a repeat of the Thursday-dinner episode.

Another presidency source has however debunked the rumour that the former First Lady could not attend the inauguration because she was emotionally down. The source who pleaded not to be mentioned said ” Mama Peace has an important event to attend in Otuoke, their country home. You don’t expect her to attend the inauguration when people are waiting for her arrival back home. She is not aggrieved over anything and she is not the only First lady who could not attend the inauguration. Her attendance is highly insignificant. I don’t know why you, press people are trying to make something out of that.”

Read More: dailypost

Failed Senators, Rep Members Have Started Moving Their Belongings Out Of National Assembly

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Senators and House of Representative members who failed in their reelection bids yesterday started moving their personal effects out of the National Assembly complex. The development came less than about one month to the proclamation of the eight National Assembly.

Personal effects of the lawmakers, including tables and chairs of various sizes, framed photographs, books, standing mirror, centre rug and artworks of various sizes were seen being loaded into waiting trucks by various aides.

You Failed, Not my Generation- Fashola to Jonathan

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Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, Tuesday, publicly disagreed with President Goodluck Jonathan over the statement that his generation has failed Nigeria, saying “You (Jonathan) failed Nigeria because my generation did not fail this country.”

President  Jonathan made the statement last Thursday while addressing youth at the flag-off of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP campaign held at the Tafawa Balewa Square, TBS Lagos.

Fashola however reacted at the 2015, First Quarter of the Town Hall meeting with stakeholders in the transportation sector held in Agidingbi, Ikeja, which also had in attendance Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC in Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode and others.

Read More: vanguardngr.com