By Justina Auta
The Federal Government has called on UN agencies to give account of donor funds and make public their account books to justify spendings on programmes targeted at Nigerian women and children.
The Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, made the call at a media briefing in Abuja on Monday.
She said that the ministry is writing a letter to all UN agencies, asking them to justify the millions of dollars collected on behalf of Nigeria’s vulnerable groups even as poverty level is on the rise.
According to her, UN agencies spend the money on frivolous projects such as meetings, advocacies and oral technical support which have little or no impact on the lives of poor Nigerians.
She added that “the people that have been in charge of sourcing funds from donors to help Nigerians are mainly the UN agencies but are they using it to help us; are we feeling the impact?.
“I want Nigerians to understand that the UN raised these monies in your name to help us, on behalf of the women and children of this country, I am asking UN for account of these monies.
“I stand here as the minister of women affairs to demand from all UN agencies, account of all the monies they sourced from donors in Nigeria’s name.
“From Oct. 16 to Nov. 15 if we did not get those reports published for Nigerians to see, we are heading to court.”
The minister, therefore, urged the UN agencies to provide the necessary information public to assure Nigerians that funds collected were channelled appropriately.
“Nigerians have every right to look at this and we are giving them one month from today, the 16th of October 2023 to November 15th 2023.
“If by Nov. 8, we did not hear anything from them, we will write a pre-action letter from this ministry on behalf of Nigerian women and children,” the minister said.
