PDP wants eminent Nigerians to manage Covid-19 donations

 

BY OUR EDITOR

The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute a group of eminent Nigerians to manage donations from the private sector and palliatives from the Federal Government to mitigate the economic effects of Covid-19 on the citizenry.

The party said the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 should immediately hands off the management of palliatives so as to eliminate corruption as well as political and bureaucratic bottlenecks that would impede effective administration of the social panaceas to vulnerable Nigerians.

The PDP in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, also asked the Federal Government to halt plans by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to increase electricity tariff as Nigerians are going through excruciating pains and cannot carry the burden of further increase in costs.

The party expressed concerns that the Federal Government has so far failed to reach vulnerable Nigerians in the informal sector, including taxi drivers, keke and okada operators, artisans, labourers, market women, traders, food sellers, fruit vendors, farmers and dealers of perishable goods, motor mechanics, among others, whose survival directly depends on daily income in the markets, shops and streets, which have been crippled by lockdowns occasioned by the COVID-19.

“Our party is deeply worried about the cries of hungry children whose parents can no longer go out to provide for their families at this critical time.

“We also urge for strategic intervention for distressed Nigerians such as cab drivers, keke operators, traders and other small-scale entrepreneurs, who took bank loans for their enterprises, but have been grounded by COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement stated.

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The PDP said that the situation at hand required urgent involvement of all Nigerians irrespective of political, ethnic or religious persuasion.

“It is a time we must bring in eminent Nigerians from the private sector to assist in developing and implementing operable target-specific strategies to reach the vulnerable Nigerians across all informal sectors of our economy.

“Our party charges President Buhari to allow for a concerted effort that looks at the nation as a whole and channel interventions to all the states, local government and wards, using community-based system that would ensure that such interventions reach our compatriots at the grassroot level,” PDP advised.

The PDP called on the President to extend financial intervention to other states of the federation as it did to Lagos State while also demanding that the Federal Government should adopt strategies to cut interest rates on such loans by microfinance and commercial banks in the country.

It restated earlier call on President Buhari to reduce the cost of fuel from N125 to the “appropriate pump price of between N80 and N90 per litre” to mitigate the suffering of Nigerians during this time.

In the same vein, PDP pleaded with landlords, particularly those of residential apartments, to bear with their low-income group tenants, whose businesses have been crippled at this critical time.