The Federal Government through the Ministry of Environment has suspended the ongoing distribution of cooking stoves to rural women in Nigeria.
The Ministry of Environment disclosed that so far it received the sum of N5 billion out of the allocated approved sum of N9.2 billion in a world press conference to kick start the activities of the 2015 World Environment Day (WED).
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mrs. Fatima Mede, while addressing the press conference said that the number of stoves already supplied had not been ascertained hence the need to suspend the distribution. She said that the ministry suspects that the number of stoves supplied by the contractor is not up to the expected amount.
Mrs. Mede further said; “The former president was supposed to commission them but we realise the implication and if we go there to commission is as good as saying we have accepted the wrong but we are not accepting them because we will also count.
“The ministry had given N1.3 billion to the contractor as part of 15 per cent kick off contract agreement to enable both parties play smooth, and the remaining N3.7 billion is kept safe in the ministry’s account.
“Looking at the supply that is in the velodrome at the national stadium to us we didn’t think was not up to the N1.3 billion that was paid to him and we wrote to him to allow us to all go there and count physically what is there.
“Until we count and we discover that he has supplied the worth of N1.3 billion because we told him earlier to secure the money with the bank so that if the supplies dose not worth it we can retrieve our money back and this is in line with the due process Act” she said.
She also said, “We cannot begin to distribute what we have not ascertained because if we had distributed them, the contractor will be cleared that he supplied everything and we took them.
“The former president was supposed to commission them but we realise the implication and if we go there to commission is as good as saying we have accepted the wrong but we are not accepting them because we will also count.”
She also said that the 2015 WED will focus on the sustainable management of the environment.
She said, “This year our focus is management of sustainable environmental management because we discovered at the ministry of environment that all these things about environment are linked.
“When we talk about climate change, whether you talk about waste, pollution, desertification, erosion, flooding these are all the things that contribute to climate change, gas flaring, marine pollution, oil exploration and all of that.”
She reminded Nigerians that anything they did from tree cutting to waste management in one way or another led to global warming and affected the climate.
