The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has expressed dismay over the report emanating from the social media on an alleged approval by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu through the Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila to the suspended Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation to expend an outrageous sum of N3b to verify the national register of the poor.
National Secretary CUPP, High Chief Peter Ameh in a statement on Tuesday said the coalition is perturbed by the development as he condemned what he described as mindless attack on the collective purse of the natio under the guise of verification of the national register.
“This reckless and mindless spending on verification of national register reflects a lack of fiscal discipline and responsibility that has become a hallmark of President Tinubu’s government who in the guise of helping the poor, keeps elevating cronyism as an art, which we ignorantly thought had gone with President Buhari’s administration.
“CUPP believes that a prudent approach could have achieved the same goal with less of our tax money through the acquisition of the same national register from the thirty-six states of the federation and FCT wherein the rural areas are predominantly domiciled.
The coalition said it is pained that this elementary form of conservation of public funds was wilfully neglected on the alter of cronyism.
According to the statement, it has raised CUPP’s concern and that of majority of Nigerians about the financial stewardship and the efficient allocation of our scarce resources by this government to projects that will trully be beneficial to the masses.
“It is CUPP’s belief that this mindless spending through cronies such as New Planet Projects Limited, a company controlled by the family of Dr. Bunmi Tunji Ojo, the Minister of Interior undermines whatever little confidence Nigerians may have had in the present government.
“Therefore it brings to the fore the urgent need for more rigorous budgetary oversights by the National Assembly, which has from day one begun to exhibit all the symptoms of a rubber stamp parliament that abdicates its oversight functions when most needed.”