The House of Representatives is to initiate a stakeholders action plan with a view to forestalling flooding across the country.
To this end, the House on Monday, mandated its committee on Legislative Agenda to coordinate a Technical Working Group between the Executive and Legislature as well as Industrial Experts and stakeholders to articulate an Action Plan to forestall a repeat of such flood and erosion disaster in 2023 and beyond.
The House further urged the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, to release immediately, the sum of five billion naira into the already created Special Ecological Fund of each State of the Federation and the F.C.T, to Mitigate the Effects of flooding that recently ravaged the country.
While urging the Federal Government to make an urgent request for Supplementary Budget from the National Assembly to the tune of N100 billion or more, an intervention fund for mitigation, the House also charged its committee on Appropriation to make provision of N200 billion in the 20023 budget, for the Ecological Project Office in the Presidency for; Flood Preparedness, Mitigation, , Response, Recovery and Relieve Packages.
These came following the adoption of a motion jointly sponsored under matters of urgent public importance, by Henry Nwauba and Brahim Isiaka, asking for a strategic action plan against flood and erosion in the country.
The lawmakers in the motion pointed out that Nigeria, like most countries across the globe, is passing through on the devastating effects of flood, which are caused by a combination of factors such as heavy rains, heavy precipitation, severe winds over water, unusual high tides, tsunamis, failure of dam’s retention ponds and the impacts of climate change, which makes flood control and management a perennial challenge.
“With each passing year, the impacts of flooding keeps getting worse, with damages to property, dangers to lives of humans and other species, traffic delay, interference with drainage and economic use of lands, interference with farming, structural damages to bridge bank lines, sewer lines, and other structures within floodways”, Nwauba who moved the motion stated.
He argued that the call was necessary, with the most recent announcement on Monday 7th November 2022 by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to the effect that the heavy downpour will re-occur next year.
