Commandant-General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Abdullahi Muhammadu, has disclosed that the body owed N580 million in rents and fuelling for its operations across the country. A breakdown of this figure reveals that N400million was for rent while fuelling gulped N180million.
Speaking at the 2017 budget
defence session before the House of Representatives Committee on Interior Matters, Muhammadu said the Corps would commit about N2 billion to the recruitment of between 2,500 and 3,500 new personnel this year, pointing out that the federal government requested the service of 5, 000 of its personnel to take care of the proposed 300 cattle ranches across the country.
Clearing the air on the rumoured recruitment of 10, 000 personnel by the agency, the
Commandant General revealed that the security agency was suffering from paucity of fund, adding that it was only buying weapons and other equipment for its personnel from its available scarce resources.
“The federal government is requesting for 5, 000 personnel to assist in taking care of the 300 cattle ranches proposed across the country. We are in need of money, the agency owes N400 million rent across the country and N180 million for operational
vehicles.
“Civil Defence is not recruiting, there are job scammers out there deceiving people, we have arrested some and charged them to court and were sentenced to seven years imprisonment. We are not recruiting and if we want to recruit, we will advertise in the dailies,” he said.
Responding to a query from the committee Chairman, Hon. Jagaba Adams Jagaba, on what the security agency used the N278 million Internally
Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2016 for, he said the money was paid to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), adding that “the money is in TSA, we don’t have access to the money; I will provide the documents for you.” He regretted that paucity of funds had crippled the Corps’ activities in several ways, saying “for the past 10 years in civil defence, nobody was promoted. 30,000 were promoted last year and we could not pay promotion arrears.”
