The Federal Executive Council (FEC) two weeks ago approved the sum of N9.2billion for the purchase of 750,000 cooking stoves and 18,000 ‘wonder bags’ for rural women under the National Clean Cooking Scheme.
The government said, “The National Clean Cooking Scheme is an aggressive drive to engender clean cooking culture amongst the poor rural women, to reduce and possibly eliminate cooking with solid fossil which is detrimental to health. The scheme is expected to provide 20 million clean stoves over a five-year period at the rate of four million stoves per annum, which will be distributed free of charge. It will also reduce incessant felling of trees, which exposes the country to ecological problems.”
The timing of this project, coming on the eve of the 2015 general elections is highly suspicious. Why now? Who are defined as rural women? What significant value will 750,000 stoves and 18,000 wonder bags create in a population of 160 million people, almost 50 per cent of which are women? There are over 700 local government councils in Nigeria, what would be the criteria for distribution? If N9.2bn can fetch only such an insignificant number of these items, what then would it cost to acquire four million units?
We share the concerns of Nigerians who have been speaking up since the issue came into the public domain. The fact that the decision to purchase the stoves and wonder bags is coming at a time when the economy of the country is threatened due to falling oil prices, following which the government announced austerity measures and devalued the Naira is disturbing.
While we appreciate government’s efforts aimed at mitigating climate change we find the action ironic, given that President Jonathan has tacitly refused to assent to a Bill seeking to establish a Climate Change Commission in the country. Establishment of a Climate Change Commission would create a body that would coordinate a national strategy on climate change, contain greenhouse emission, and regulate the carbon market. A harmonised version of the Bill was sent to the president in December 2010. Four years on, it has not been assented to.
The president’s refusal to assent to the Bill when juxtaposed with the speedy approval of funds for the cooking stoves and wonder bags makes the motive even more suspicious.
Findings have revealed that there may have been a trade-off of an item in the budget for the purchase, as checks of the 2014 budget did not find any sub-head representing the National Clean Cooking Scheme. For instance, the budgetary allocation to Women Affairs stands at N4, 530,575,191, some N5billion short of the N9.2billion approved for this purchase. Neither was there any such sub-head listed in the budgetary allocations to the Ministries of Environment, and Health. The coordinating minister of the economy should take a rain check on this, because it smacks of an attempt to rip the Nigerian people off.
