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Probe funds allocated to NAEC – Workers urge Buhari

By on September 27, 2015

Researchers and other categories of workers at the Centre for Energy Research and Development, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute a panel to probe the activities of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission.

Some of the workers, who spoke to our correspondent, said the centre and the Centre for Energy Research and Training, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, which were approved in 1980 following the challenge thrown at Nigerian scientists by the then Head of State, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, were being underfunded and grossly mismanaged by the leadership of NAEC.

The workers noted that the two centres were established to bring the benefits of atomic energy programmes into the country, adding that this had not been achieved because of poor leadership of the NAEC.

They claimed that the N4m overhead of CERD was slashed to N1.8m and was eventually cut down to N900,000. This, they said, had made it impossible to maintain research equipment that needed to be run continuously.

One of the workers said, “We are calling for a public hearing to be instituted by any competent organ of the Federal Government to shed light on the financial and administrative recklessness of the present leadership of NAEC from 2006 to date.

“Since the NAEC took over co-ordination of the CERD and CERT in 2007, funds released to the centres through it have not been following due process; where the principle of accountability and transparency are not respected.

“Both CERD and CERT have self-accounting status with organisational code, and approval to open account. With all this, the commission has not allowed the activation of this status such that it prevents the centre from having their budget lines. This situation allows an individual at the commission to unilaterally expend appropriated fund for the centres. This is a clear indication of lack of respect for due process and transparency.”

The workers said since the centres were established by the OAU and ABU, their workers should be paid by the universities in the interest of industrial harmony.

They also accused the leadership of the commission of neglecting their welfare and refusal to pay their hazard allowances despite their exposure to radiation hazard.

 

 

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