N9.3B Cookstoves Drama: Senator Bukola Saraki Also Reacts

After the Federal Government announced its
intention of giving out cookstoves in some
parts of the country, a lot of tongues have
been waging, condemning the act. This
evening, Senator Bukola Saraki also reacts in
a press statement sent out by his media
person.
In view of public concerns and criticism by
various stakeholders on the recently
announced N9.3 billion Clean Cookstoves
Contract awarded by the Federal
Government, Senate Committee Chairman on
Environment & Ecology, Senator Bukola
Saraki has faulted the intervention on the
grounds of misplacement of immediate
priority and lack of transparency and
accountability in the procurement process.
Senator Saraki believes that funding of the
Clean Cookstove from the Ecological fund
without due process is a mockery of the
Procurement Act and the Cookstove initiate.
The Ecological funds which is assumed to
have been the source of this fund was
established to fight emergency ecological
problems in Nigeria like flooding, erosion and
other unforeseen natural disasters and not for
funding initiatives such as clean Cookstoves
which are suppose to be funded through
appropriations by National Assembly.
Senator Saraki, who is the highest political
office holder in Nigeria to lead the clean
Cookstoves initiative in Nigeria is a member
of the Leadership council of the Global
Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and believes
that an intervention of that financial
magnitude should be driven in partnership
with the private sector through various forms
of Public-Private partnerships. Senator Saraki
will like to avoid a situation whereby his
integrity would be put at stake, for example
when he attends the next Leadership Council
meeting and he is asked to make a
presentation on how the N9.3bn was used to
create markets for clean Cookstoves in
Nigeria and he cannot lay his hand on any
convincing strategy. He lamented how it has
been very difficult for his committee in the
past to appropriate even 100 million Naira for
the same initiative due to insufficient Federal
Government allocation for the environment
sector, for the presidency to now direct
N9.3bn to be spent as sole source is
questionable. The Global Alliance for Clean
cookstoves is striving to create an enabling
market for clean Cookstoves and such
fundamental best practice should be
emulated for a sustainable clean Cookstoves
program in Nigeria.
Creating a market enabling environment and
adoption of innovative business models to
attract business investments in scaling up
the use of clean Cookstoves in Phase 2 of the
Global Alliance's vision were part of what was
agreed at recently concluded Cookstoves
Future Summit in New York. Senator Saraki
noted that the distribution of stoves are
important in stimulating the demand for the
product, but the amount of intervention that
was announced by OSGF who knows only
little of the issue instead of the FME who has
been championing the issue, came without
adequate research, when there are still
awareness gaps, and more immediate life
threatening ecological issues currently
confronting the nation.
Senator Saraki was hoping to convey a
meeting with the Senate Committee on
environment and stakeholders before the
adjournment till December 16, but in the
interim noted some misplacement of
priorities in the project components where
the most important issue of setting up the
structures that will create a sustainable
market for clean Cookstoves was not
addressed. Additionally, spending such an
amount on this initiative without due process
given the aforementioned national limitations
that we are facing defeats the purpose of a
long lasting solution.
The Senator Bukola Saraki-led Committee on
Environment & Ecology agrees that in order
for Nigeria to achieve her 20 million clean
Cookstoves target by 2020, some
government intervention is required to
stimulate the demand for Cookstoves which
include distributing stoves for free to
Nigerians in the lowest part of the economic
ladder. However, distributing 750,000 stoves
at once is market distorting. It doesn't
encourage investment and is
counterproductive to the Global Alliance's
vision of creating a sustainable market for
clean Cookstoves.
Senator Saraki, therefore, calls for a review of
the whole process involving all critical
stakeholders that would be more transparent
and that can make it more accountable to
Nigerians. An efficient tracking, monitoring
and implementation strategy domiciled and
implemented by the Federal Ministry of
Environment which will support our existing
local manufacturers to build capacity should
be pursued. We can't be talking about
stimulating demand and creating local jobs
by sending foreign exchange to another
country to import stoves. A N9.3bn PPP
arrangement with the private sector with the
potential of addressing all the subsectors of
the clean Cookstoves initiative would build
investor confidence and guarantee
investments in the establishment of Clean
Cookstoves manufacturing plants in Nigeria.
He further calls upon the Ministry of
Environment to ensure that funds meant for
the initiative should not be diverted to fund
political campaigns, given the suspicious
timing of the FEC approval.
Bamikole Omishore

Posted By David Aniemeka