Plateau State: SURE-P Fund Petition Creates Acrimony
Relations between Plateau state government and the state’s legislators are reportedly not at their smoothest at the moment. Jonah Jang, Governor Of Plateau State
The source of this disagreement, according to AIT report, is a petition written by a group known as the Plateau Patriotic Front, which accused the state government of financial impropriety in the utilization of SURE-P funds.
Activities at the state house of assembly remains quite as members of the house remain mute on issues.
The petition against the government prompted the house to delegate its committee on public relations and petitions to investigate the petition and bring its findings to the house.
However, an aide to the governor states that the relationship still remains cordial and warm.
Pamson Dagyat, State Statistician, said, “There is a harmonious working relationship between the seventh assembly and the executive as far as this political dispensation is concerned.
To my mind, as a state, the entire Plateau state people are very comfortable with the way and manner the governor has managed the very meager resources that comes to the state.”
Abbas Wakdong a lawmaker in the state while speaking on the allegations against the government said they are weighty and need to be investigated.
“They bought vehicles, about 130 or more and shared to the 17 local governments and they said it is part of the SURE-P funds.
The petitioner said that each of the Hilux stands at N9.5 million instead of N5.5 million. These are weighty issues.”
However Pamson Dagyat, State Statistician states that the origin of the petition is baseless.
“For us to be able to run as a state, it implies that on a monthly basis, Plateau state should have more than 2 billion, because the programme has been on for like two years. So it is only when you have such kind of remittance to Plateau state before you even start talking of us getting up to 50 billion.
But the truth of the matter is that we get barely 200 million every month as state SURE-P remittance.”
Efforts to reach members of the house committee on public petitions and the house leadership remained abortive as they were unavailable for comments.
