The House of Representatives committee on Finance has vowed to direct the stoppage fund releases to the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) over the agency’s failure to present its budget for approval by the National Assembly.
Handing down the warning on Tuesday, chairman of the committee, James Faleke, noted that attention of the Minister of Finance had been to the repeated refusal of the agency to forward its budget to the panel, accusing NSIA of holding on to the provision in its establishment Act, to receive budgetary approval by its Borad, and spend without recourse to the National Assembly.
Faleke said the committee will not hesitate to direct the office of the Accountant General of the Federation not to make any disbursement to the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority in 2022, if it continue to turn down its invitations, insisting that no law is superior to the Nigerian Constitution.
“We will not approve fund for that agency in 2022 budget”, Faleke said before the committee proceeded with budget defence engagement with other agencies under its supervision.
Going the beget performance of 2021, Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris told the panel that of the N3.711 billion approved for his office, and its offices as personnel cost, N2.986 billion has been released as at September 2021, representing about 80 percent.
On the overhead cost, he disclosed that the office within the same period accessed N564.623 million out of N752.83 million approved budget, and for capital, N295.837 million released out of the N483.29 million approved.
On 2022, he said the proposed budget across the sub heads were; N9.088 billion for personnel cost, which included a new component of foreign service attaché, N752.831 million for overhead, and N629.600 million for capital, bringing the total to N10.470 billion.
