Senate Clears Finance Minister Of Allegation Of Budget Padding

• Frowns at shoddy implementation of NSIP by humanitarian ministry

The Evangelist
December 5, 2022

The Senate Committee on Appropriation on Monday gave the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, a clean bill of health on alleged insertions in budgetary provisions of some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

This is as it frowned at the shoddy implementation of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) based on the lack of records of verifiable beneficiaries.

Finance Minister got her clearance on the alleged series of paddings in the proposed N20.51 trillion 2023 budget from the Senate Committee on Appropriation when she appeared before the committee to make clarifications on the alleged insertions.

She expressed shock to the committee that some heads of agencies feigned ignorance of the sum in their budget during their interface with relevant committees for budget defence.

She explained that money was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) before the budget presentation itself by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, October 7, 2022.

“All the proposed budgetary sums like the N206billion in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, the N8.6billion in the Ministry of Defence, N195.468billion in the estimates for the Ministry of Power etc. were all captured before a presentation by Mr President.

“Most of these sums are bilateral or multilateral loans captured in the budget of agencies selected for project execution for the sole purpose of transparency.

“The totality of such loans captured in the proposed budget of the relevant agencies is N1.771 trillion.