Edun panel developing financial guidelines for humanitarian ministry – Presidency

The Presidency on Sunday said the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Mr Wale Edun, will speed up the ongoing financial reforms in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, given the importance of its Social Investment Programmes.

The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, who spoke to The PUNCH, said the Edun-led committee was working while it remained mindful of the urgency of the need to resume the social investment programmes which President Bola Tinubu halted last Friday.

“What Edun is doing is not to probe the ministry. He is developing financial guidelines for the ministry. His is not a probe. It’s only the EFCC that is probing.

“Mr Edun was not given a timeline, but he knows those things are urgent. Until all the probes by the EFCC and the creation of financial guidelines are done, we cannot proceed.

“Because of the urgency of what that ministry handles, Mr. Edun knows that he must wrap up his assignment fast to create a foolproof financial architecture for that organisation,” Onanuga said.

While announcing the suspension of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation on January 7, the Presidency said Tinubu had tasked a panel, headed by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, to, among other functions, “conduct a comprehensive diagnostic on the financial architecture and framework of the social investment programmes to conclusively reform the relevant institutions and programmes in a determined bid to eliminate all institutional frailties for the exclusive benefit of disadvantaged households and win back lost public confidence in the initiative.”

The Presidency on Sunday stressed that the Tinubu-administration had no sacred cows and would spare no entity found culpable in the ongoing investigation of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and its Social Investment Programmes.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Ajuri Ngelale, affirmed this when he spoke on TVC’s Politics on Sunday.

Providing context to the ongoing probe, Ngelale said, “The President has given full instruction to the EFCC chairman to  conduct a thorough investigation.

“The way the President would direct such an investigation is to say that nobody, no name, should be left out if they are found wanting in the situation. No sacred cows at all.

“Anywhere this investigation takes the EFCC and other investigating authorities, that is where the investigation must go and the President will take action accordingly.”