Politics 2016 Budget: See 6 Fresh Flaws Detected By National Assembly Committee

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The Senate and House Joint Committee on Appropriation has detected fresh errors in the 2016 budget which could be another reason for the shift in date of passing the budget by the legislative body, PUNCH gathered.

See the breakdown of the fresh flaws:

1. 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.

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.

2. 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.

3. They 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.

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.

4. The Senate Committee also 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.

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5. 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.

6. 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.

Although, the Senate spokesperson, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, said the errors had been corrected at the committee stage.

But opposition party lawmakers told The PUNCH 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.”






Source: PUNCH
 
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