The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, said the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the social intervention programmes of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government as a hoax.
The PDP in a statement by Kola Ologbondiyan, said leaders of the ruling party have allegedly been fleecing the country through the social incentives programme rather than deploying it to benefit the people.
The opposition party noted that the alleged failure of the COVID-19 social palliatives to reach Nigerians, contrary to claims by the government, validates allegations that the APC has allegedly been using ghost beneficiaries to siphon government resources.
It added that it is alarming that not even a handful of Nigerians have acknowledged receipt of COVID 19 palliatives despite claims by government officials of having paid out billions of naira as palliatives to individuals and households.
“The PDP invites Nigerians to note how officials of the APC-led administration fraudulently sidestepped extant financial regulations and illegally resorted to cash disbursements, directly by a cabinet minister, instead of using Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) cash disbursement facility.
“Such was part of the design to use few unsuspecting Nigerians to circumvent the system, muddle up financial documentation and accountability processes and facilitate the siphoning of huge chunk of the palliative fund.
“Such practice directly points to fraudulent diversion of funds by APC leaders, who have been using the same template of the discredited social investment programmes, which had been exposed by the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, as a fraud, when she, last year, revealed that the N500bn Social Investment Programme of the Buhari administration was not getting to the target beneficiaries.
“More embarrassing is the duplicitous inclusion of the scandalous school feeding programme as an expenditure line even when schools are closed following the social distancing directives; an alarming development that points to the level of corruption in the APC administration.
“The public can now see how the APC-led administration has been using the names of poor Nigerians to loot our national treasury and fritter away billions of naira to finance their wasteful lifestyle while majority of our citizens wallow in hardship and abject poverty.
