President Muhammadu Buhari has directed governors of the 36 states of the federation to ensure that salaries and entitlements of workers are paid before Christmas.
Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo state, who disclosed this yesterday to State House correspondents . In what appears a repeat of its 2017 Budget estimates, the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, has again come under fire for some padding of sorts in the 2018 Budget.
The allegation of budget duplication came to fore when the defence team in the ministry appeared before the Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy and the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing Although the minister in charge of the ministry, Babatunde Raji Fashola was absent at the budget defence session, the lawmakers faulted the estimates in very strong terms and also frowned at his absence.
Similar drama played out at the 2017 budget defence when Fashola disowned the N2billion “planted” in the budget of the Housing Ministry.
The minister shocked the committee when he said he wasn’t in the known of the sum voted for regional housing scheme by the Ministry of Finance.
Repeat scenario
Similar scenario played out yesterday when the committee faulted some questionable estimates which were allegedly duplicated.
To their chagrin, the team, comprising the Minister of State, Mustapha Baba Shahuru, Permanent Secretary, Louis Edozie and some top directors, were asked to return to the drawing board and get their data right. The Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe- led committee, had last Thursday, faulted the allocation of N10 billion solar power projects for nine universities, just as it asked the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola to go back over his seeming “unpreparedness to face the committee for his 2018 budget defence.”
Abaribe frowned at the conspicuous absence of the substantive minister, saying it was deliberate. He kicked against allocation of N500million for monitoring of projects amongst other expenditure projections in 2018 Budget proposals of the ministry.
At the session, an angry committee noted “too much duplication, repetitions and replications” in the team’s presentation. The lawmakers queried the allocation of an estimated N868million for cars under different sub-headings, as well as other items it considered unnecessary and vague.
A cursory look at the appropriation bill put forward by the officials revealed that N120 million, N480 million and N288 million were separately voted for purchase of utility vehicles by the ministry, while some N100 million was also set aside for transfer and management of office files and documents. Other items contained in the budget that attracted the lawmakers’ angst include the duplication of TCN counter fund programme which the lawmakers decided to remove from the agency’s budget henceforth.
According to them, it appears in both the ministry and the TCN budgets. They were also aghast at the item on movement of fi les and documents which has a budget of N100million, in addition to about N1billion allocated to purchase of vehicles with different sub-headings among others.
Specifically, the senators were not happy that “year in, year out, the ministry presents the same items in the budget and asks for more funds to execute the same projects.” Taking on the ministry’s officials on the purchase of utility vehicles, Senator Clifford Ordia, representing Edo Central of Edo state, noted that the item was captured in three separate instances of the same document. “I need to understand this thing. Look at the different pages.
You earmarked N120 million, N288 million and N480 million for the purchase of vehicles. I do not understand. Are these vehicles different? If you add up these figures, they will give you about N888 million. “You also said that you want to spend N100 million on transfer of office fi les. How do you intend to do that? The people in your office, what have they been doing?
I can also see from your estimates here that you captured another item for ICT, different from the N100 million for transfer of fi les. You need to explain these things,” the lawmaker queried. Also interrogating the fiscal document, Senator Mao Ohuabunwa, fi red at the officials for not giving prompt response to the committee’s inquiries.
“From the beginning to the end of the documentation, there are questions and questions to be asked. Most of the funds were duplicated in the Transmission Company of Nigeria budget. “Mr. Minister, you said you will provide answers to our questions later. Why do we waste time sitting here when answers to our questions will be provided another day.
They are not prepared for the budget defence. They should go back when they are prepared they should come back.” Taking the interaction to another level, Senator Mohammed Hassan, representing Yobe South, sought some explanation on what the ministry did with the N17.8 billion it received in 2017, accusing them of repeating same items every year.
He said: “Every year you bring new projects that are unrelated. We should be given list of ongoing projects. Unrelated projects are listed; nobody knows how much has been applied to the projects.” Rounding off the session, Abaribe said, “You (facing minister of state) were sent here to represent the Minister. It means you are here to respond to our questions. Last week, we invited the Permanent Secretary to respond. Today, it is your turn.
“My colleagues asked me how come you are the person here and not Minister Fashola. But I told them since you were also a minister, you could be here to on behalf of your minister.” Although Shauru tried justifying Fashola’s absence, but Abaribe said, “maybe Fashola decided to snub us because of some media reports last week. But he ought not to have been angry by that. I am sure that was why he sent you because he did not want to come here.
“I would say that the absence of the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola at today’s budget defence is deliberate. Now you can see the reason, because what it means is that most of the information that we need to be able to properly scrutinize this budget was not provided.
“All that we are saying is just make it simple for clarity sake. For every budget item that you have for any of the projects, it is necessary for us to know the cost of the project because merely just saying we are putting certain amount of money does not give us any sense of pleasure. “If there is variation then you can add that then we can know, so that we can track every money spent on that and all these things can be made clear by giving us addendum at the bottom of every presentation you are making.
“So, we are going to adjourn this budget defence to enable you go back and get all the information we need from you, and we will give you a new date and when we give you that date, please ask the Hon Minister himself to be available himself with you so that we will be sure that the complete ministry is here. Every question that needs to be answered would be properly answered.
NEPZA too
Similarly, the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment yesterday ‘uncovered’ plans of the management of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) to pad the agency’s 2018 budget on personnel cost alone, with N205million , having succeeded in doing so in its 2017 budget with N122million .
Revelation to this effect emerged when the Managing Director of the agency, Hon Jime Emmanuel and other top officials faced the committee yesterday for their 2018 budget defence and presentation on the implementation of the 2017 budget.
Specifically , a member of the committee, Senator Usman Bayero Nafada ( APC Gombe North), took up the agency’s management on why they requested for N638million for personnel cost in their 2017 budget, out of which N505million has been used for salary payment up till November.
He said based on the N505millio already used by the agency to pay salaries of its workers up to November , only N11m is needed by it for December salary and not the N133million balance.
Senator Nafada went further to draw the attention of the committee members to a proposal already made by the agency to hike its personnel cost in the 2018 budget to N710million. According to him, if in 2017, NEPZA is having excess of about N122millio on personnel cost out of the N628million released , why requesting for N710 million in 2018 which if given , would result in surplus of N205million?
“This is unacceptable and should not be allowed to scale through by this committee by reappropriating the excess money to other budgetary items like overhead or capital, ” he said . When the committee chair, Senator Sabo Mohammed (APC Jigawa West), asked NEPZA MD to explain the surplus, he couldn’t convince the senators with his explanations anchored on promotion arrears for some staffers of the agency, and blamed everything on the office of the Accountant General of the Federation .
“The surplus was not created by us but rather what was approved for us by the AGF office “, he said. But the committee faulted his argument by telling him that the AGF office works on projections and approvals forwarded to it as far as personnel costs are
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