Essential Ndubuisi
Princess-Ekwi Ajide
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan says the National Assembly will provide resources in 2022 budget for the battle against COVID-19 pandemic but will insist on prudence in the use of the funds.
He was speaking in Abuja while declaring open a National Summit on COVID-19 organised by the Presidential Steering Committee(PSC) on COVID-19 with the theme: End the Pandemic and Build Back Better.
The Senate President told participants at the summit that “in the 2022 appropriation, whatever is necessary will be provided for Nigeria to continue to fight the pandemic and beyond it but that there will be a caveat, that those who will be given those funds need to provide the kind of prudence that is necessary.
He urged National Assembly Committees who had been working closely with the PSC to ensure very strict and rigorous scrutiny and oversight of funds in 2022 when they are able to provide them to the Federal Ministry of Health and it’s agencies.
Senator Lawan assured Nigerians that members of the National Assembly and other political leaders in the country take the health of Nigerians very seriously and will continue to be alive to their responsibilities to ensure that citizens are protected and provided the right opportunity to take the vaccine.
The Senate President also urged relevant health authourities to do more to ensure that the vaccine hesitancy is minimised or eliminated if possible and commended the PSC for the great work it had done in effectively coordinating and mounting a formidable national response to the global public health threat.
According to him, members of the Senate gave up fifty percent of their monthly salaries to provide relief materials for Nigerians to cushion the effect of the pandemic while some members of the Assembly procured and distributed various COVID – 19 relief materials to their constituencies.
