N’Assembly committee detects fresh errors in 2016 budget after 3 months of Deliberation

-


The Senate and House Joint Committee on Appropriation has detected fresh errors in the 2016 budget, it has been revealed.
It was gathered that the errors were responsible for the failure of the committee to present its report to the two chambers of the National Assembly on Wednesday as it had promised as the dliberation hits 3 month
Investigations, however, showed that the errors would not affect the plan of the National Assembly to transmit the budget to President Muhammadu Buhari before Easter as efforts were being made to correct them.
For example, in 2013, the sum of N527,000,000 was budgeted for the item; in 2014, N1,161,356,582 was allocated to the same item; in 2015, N316,420,274 was budgeted for it; and N1,710,322,610 is to be spent on the procurement and installation of security system in the SGF office in 2016.It was learnt that one of the anomalies detected was in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, where provisions had been made for procurement and installation of security systems every year since 2013.
The committee also detected items without project locations in the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing (headquarters).
Such projects include the construction of a block of three classrooms at the cost of N85,592,483; construction of a maternity centre for N91,124,858; and the allocation of N172,623,767 for the building of skill acquisition centres.
The committee pointed out that oversight function would not be possible without project locations.
It was learnt that the committee also discovered anomalies in the allocation of large amounts of money for the rehabilitation and repair of office buildings as well as purchase of office items and fittings.
Not less than N21bn was allocated to such repairs and purchase at the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the government.
The committee also detected duplication of items. For example, N2.3bn was earmarked for former heads of state in the service wide vote of the Ministry of Budget and Planning, while N400,190,000 was allocated to the affairs of the former heads of state in the SGF office.
Other examples of duplication include allocation of N256,920,000 for the purchase of equipment, vehicles and furniture for the National Bureau of Statistics and the N230,705,000 by the NBS for the same purpose.
It was also learnt that the committee discovered instances where allocations for the purchase of items were made without stating the quantities to be bought.
Such include the construction of solar boreholes at the cost of N140m in the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing and in the National Power Training Institute, N81m was budgeted for operational vehicles.
The committee described some items as curious. These include the allocation of N340m for wildlife conservation at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and N150m for growing girls and women project at the Federal Road Maintenance Agency.
Another curious budgetary item is the refund of N2,479,581,721 to states for federal roads, which was placed under the National Intelligence Agency.
When contacted, the Senate spokesperson, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, said the errors had been corrected at the committee stage.
He said that there were no fresh errors and challenged anyone with contrary information to publish the source.
Abdullahi said, “The errors in the budget were identified at the various committee levels. The Appropriation committees of both chambers had jointly scrutinised the document and had come up with an error-free copy.
“As a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, I can confirm to you that I am not aware of any fresh error discovered after the joint committee of the two chambers had worked on the budget.
“I challenge anyone with contrary information to publish it together with the source.”
But opposition party lawmakers said that the report was not submitted because there were still areas to be re-touched.
For example, the Minority Leader of the House, Mr. Leo Ogor, said the report was undergoing “finishing touches.”
Ogor added, “There are areas that require finishing touches. It will cut across several parts of the budget.
“But, I know it is something that will be quickly sorted out and the report will be laid by the grace of God tomorrow (today).”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kaduna, Dangote, BoI, Others To Acquire PAN – El-Rufai

-
Image
Gov. Nasir El-Rufa’i of Kaduna State said on Friday that the government, Bank of Industry, business tycoon Aliko Dangote and some states will acquire the Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Ltd (PAN). El-Rufa’i who said this during the state’s special day at the ongoing 37th Kaduna International Trade Fair, named the other states as Katsina, Kebbi and Jigawa. He said a proposal to acquire the majority shares of the company had already been submitted to Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON). According to him, the step is part of efforts to revive ailing industries in the state to provide huge employment opportunities to the teeming unemployed youths in the region and Kaduna State in particular. He said that PAN, a critical partner in Kaduna State industrial history, had gone down from assembling 90,000 cars per annum to merely 200 a year. “Our hope is that when we acquire the majority share of the company, we will restructure it to operate to full capacity of assembling betwee...
Tap & Tell »

N780bn: I’ll Meet Lawmakers Today Over N50bn Payment – Shittu

-
Image
The minister of Communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu yesterday said he will meet with the Senate Committee on Communications today as well as face the House of Reps counterparts on Thursday to explain his role in the N50 billion payment paid by MTN and the withdrawal of court case against the government. Shittu who fielded question to technology journalists in Lagos yesterday during a working visit to three telecommunications operating companies, MainOne, MTN and Globacom said the request of the lawmakers was in order. The legislature is empowered by law to check, from time to time, the activities of the executive arm of government with a view to ensuring transparency in the system, he said. “The latest about the MTN fine matter now is that, MTN, which took the government to court for imposing N1.04 trillion on it for violation of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) registration rule has come out to say it wanted an out of court settlement. In a democratic system, out-of-cour...
Tap & Tell »

Senate moves to enforce patronage of local goods

-
Image
THE Senate, Wednesday adopted a motion seeking the amendment of the Procurement Act to compel all government agencies and institutions to give maximum priority to patronising locally made products. Adopting a two prayer motion moved by Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe (PDP Abia South) titled “Need For Patronisation of Made-in-Nigeria Goods,” the Senate urged the Federal Government to initiate and implement the first option policy on purchase of locally manufactured goods for any government procurement in all arms of government and every public funded organisation. It also urged both the National Assembly to amend the Procurement Act to ensure that as a matter of law, agencies of government and government funded institutions adopt ‘the made-in-Nigeria’ goods first option policy and where consideration is first given to the local industry before any other. In a comment shortly after the motion had been passed, Senate President Bukola Saraki said: “I used the opportunity to commend him be...
Tap & Tell »