Members
of the Borno State Caucus in the National Assembly have cried to the
Federal Government and international donor agencies for help over
deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the state.
They
also called for a review of the proposed 2017 budgetary allocation of
N45b to the Presidential Committee on Northeast Initiative (PCNI) to
N100b, describing the current proposal as inadequate to cater for the
humanitarian challenges in the region.
“In
the 2016 Appropriation Act, only N12b was allocated to PINE to
address the humanitarian crisis in the Northeast, out of which only
75 percent was released. This is less than 10 percent of the $449m
contributed by international donor countries and agencies.
“In
the 2017 Budget proposal under consideration by NASS, only N45b is
allocated to PCNI.
This is grossly inadequate to address the
emergency humanitarian crisis we are faced with, compared to the
$1.0b, which is equivalent to over N305b that the international donor
countries and agencies are trying to raise,” they said.
The
lawmakers also expressed worry over what they called the near absence
of relevant government agencies in the affected areas, compared with
the number of foreign NGOs or groups rendering support services for
the IDPs.
The
lawmakers, therefore, advocated a nine-point demands needed to save
more lives and assist people in Northeast as adopted by NGOs
operating in the affected areas, including, the prioritisation of the
protection of civilians, an urgent scale up of the food and nutrition
response and increased access to more, better and safe quality
education.
The Guardian
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