A non-governmental organisation, Environment Watch, has attributed the recent flood disaster in Mokwa Local Area of Niger State to the non-implementation of 2025 budget of federal ministry of works.

DAILY NIGERIAN reports that a disaster which occurred on Thursday had killed 151 and displaced over 3,000 people .

In a statement issued on Saturday, the organisation decried the delay in implementing the 2025 budget five months into the fiscal year.

They alleged that the delay stalled works on drainages and other erosion issues in different parts of the country, noting that “this would have greatly mitigated the Mokwa flood disaster”.

Speaking during a visit to the IDPs camp, programme manager of the NGO, Haruna Ndazogi, condemned the Minister of Works, David Umahi, for failing to commence procurement process for critical federal projects captured in the 2025 budget.

He warned that unless concrete measures are taken, there would be more flood disaster in different parts of the country with the rains just beginning “since most of these projects have not been accorded priority by the works ministry”.

“While information available to us suggest that other MDAs have started issuing contracts for 2025, Minister Umahi, for reasons best known to him, has refused to kick start the process in the works ministry.

“We are worried that if care is not taken, we may be experiencing more and more flood disaster since roads, culverts and bridges that would have been fixed had the ministry approve contracts from the 2025 fiscal year, are left in a state of disrepair” he added.

Mr Ndazogi said the organisation interfaced with some members of the national assembly who confirmed that they had captured some of the roads, bridges, culverts and drainages in the 2025 budget as their constituency projects but the non-implementation is dragging things back.

The NGO wondered why the works ministry has yet to start implementing the 2025 budget and accused him of merely concentrating on the Coastal road and neglecting other critical projects across the country.

Similarly, the environmental watch accused the works minister of frustrating implementation of the federal government’s agenda in the area of critical infrastructure noting ‘something concrete and urgent must be done to address the nation’s infrastructure decay.

While urging the President to take out all the bad eggs in his cabinet, the NGO said some officials of the present administration are sabotaging efforts to make life better for the citizens.