2011 FG Votes N79bn For Amnesty Programme

Ex-militants from the Niger Delta region are in for better days as the Federal Government has concluded arrangements to settle all the backlog of allowances owed them while an adequate budgetary allocation has been set aside in the 2011 for their rehabilitation under the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

This is just as the National Assembly has perfected plans to slash the overall N2.4 trillion recurrent cost proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 budget by reducing overhead cost for Executive Agencies including those under the Presidency.

In the 2011 budget, N78.6 billion was allocated to cover expenses for the stipends, feeding allowances and general cost of running the programme for 20,192 ex-militants from the Niger Delta region.

Out of the N78.6 billion, a total of N35.722 billion is to be used for the arrears of the cost of re-integration of transformed Niger Delta militants; N17. 5 billion is to be used for reinsertion and transition safety allowances for the militants and another N17 billion for stipends and feeding allowances for the year.

N6.5 billion of the budgetary allocation is earmarked for the 2010 arrears for transformed ex-militants, while about N1 billion will be used as operating cost of the amnesty programme.

The federal Government by this huge budgetary allocation is strategically working out for a lasting peace in the area especially ahead of the 2011 general elections and to ensure that the estimated daily crude output be realistic.

Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja