N189bn election budget: INEC boss returns to NASS for clarification

For the second day running, disagreement ensued yesterday among members of the National Assembly joint committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over N189billion budgetary approval INEC is seeking for the conduct of the 2019 general elections..
For a way out of the stalemate , the committee resolved that the Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu should appear before it today for further clarification on the N189billion the electoral body is requesting for the elections as against N143billion President Muhammadu Buhari requested the National Assembly to approve for it this year.
The INEC boss had at separate interface with Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Wednesday told the lawmakers that the entire N189billion budgeted for the conduct of the elections should be appropriated for at once as against two -fold approval request made byPresident Muhammadu Buhari in a virement seeking letter forwarded to NASS last month.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in a letter seeking for virement of N242 billion for the conduct of the elections, requested the National Assembly to appropriate N143bn for INEC this year.
The President in the letter read at both chambers of the National Assembly on the 17th of last month, explained further that additional N45billion out of the INEC’s component of the N242billion,would be provided for in the 2019 budget estimates.
But the Chairman of the electoral body Professor Mahmood Yakubu, in his submission before the Senate Committee on INEC on Wednesday said the total sum of N189billion proposed by the commission for conduct of the elections should be appropriated for it at once .
According to him, while the President in the said letter broke INEC’s budgetary proposal for the 2019 elections into two by requesting for N143billion appropriation for it this year and additional N45billion for it next year , INEC to be on sound financial footing for the elections, wants the entire N189billion to be appropriated for this year.
“Our proposed budget for the 2019 general elections submitted to the Presidency for is N189billion and that is our preference.
“This is not to say that there is disparity between our proposal and the one forwarded on our behalf by the President because if you add N143billion the President in the said letter requested for release to us this year to the additional N45billion to be captured for us in the 2019 budget for the same purposes of conduct of the forthcoming general elections, it gives the same figure of N189billion”, he said.