FG Not Committed To Fighting Piracy, Oil Theft – Anyanwu

Senator Chris Anyanwu, Chairman, Senate Committee on Navy, has criticised the federal government as unserious in fighting piracy and oil theft citing the poor funding of the Nigerian Navy.
Speaking, yesterday, during the visit of the Senate Committee on Navy to discuss the implementation of the 2013 appropriation budget by the armed service, Anyanwu, who spoke on behalf of the committee commended the budget performance of the Navy for the year, but decried the inadequate release of funds for the capital projects.
Anyanwu noted that the approximate sum of N8 billion being released out of the total sum of N14 billion, representing 55.8 per cent of the capital budget is far below the average figures for all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
“We have just gone through the budget performance for the year 2013. And we have been fully briefed by the Chief of Naval Staff and his men and we are very pleased to hear that quite a bit of progress has been made. He has explained that there is an area of great concern to us and that is the area of capital projects where the budget releases fall far short of what we know to be the average in both the armed forces and in the MDAs.
“The capital released so far amounts to only 55.8 percent of what they need. And that is not even enough to deal with one of the major capital items, the funding of the Off-Shore Patrol Vessels (OPVs). We are very unhappy about it, and we want the Ministry of Finance to ensure that our obligation to the clients with regard to this OPVs are met because if we fail in the payment schedule then it leads us to failure in terms of the project.
“We are not also very happy that major areas like the development of the jetties and purchase of a helicopter which was in fact put in the budget as a replacement of the one that crashed has left a vacuum in the operations last year.”

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