By Henry Umoru & Joseph Erunke

ABUJA— THE Senate Committee on Education, yesterday, uncovered N9,982,258,479 hidden in the budget of parastatals by the Federal Ministry of Education.
PIC.23. SENATE CHAMBER DURING THE INAUGURATION OF THE 8TH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY IN ABUJA ON TUESDAY (9/6/15). 3023/9/6/2015/CH/BJO/NAN
SENATE CHAMBER

The committee, which discovered the amount at the commencement of its 2016 budget defence, said the amount was hidden in the ministry’s parastatals.

The parastatals allocation for the year, according to the Senate Committee, increased at geometric progression by almost N10 billion while the entire personnel cost for the ministry and all its subsidiaries including schools and colleges declined drastically when compared to that of last year.

To this end, the committee chairman, Senator Aliyu Wamakko, ruled that the permanent secretary and the ministry should go back to the drawing board and come up with a more sensible overhead cost, saying its discovery was that the huge sum was deliberately hidden under parastatals’ personnel cost.

As seen, the ministry’s parastatals’ personnel cost rose from N88.1 billion in 2015 to as high as N98.1 billion in 2016 estimate proposals while the personnel budget of universities reduced by as much as N16.245 billion, declining from N227.2 billion in 2015 to N211.0 billion in 2016.

Similarly, colleges of education budget decreased from N40.2 billion in 2015 to N37.6 billion, while polytechnics’ personnel cost which previously stood at N61.44 billion in 2015 was trimmed to N58.23 billion just as unity colleges’ budget had been cut from N288.7billion to N7.588 billion.

While the ministry itself reduced its budget by only N244.9 million from N3.768 billion in 2015 to N3.523 billion in 2016, UNESCO Paris was the worst hit with the drastic reduction of its budget from N288.3 billion in 2015 to N7.588 billion in 2016.

Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwuka,who appeared before the Senate Committee on Secondary School Education for budget defence, in company of the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Folasade Yemi-Esan, gave account of the education budget performance in 2015.

He said N483.183 billion budget was earmarked for education in 2015, with only N13.279 billion released.

Anwuka added that only 50 per cent of N23.5 billion, amounting to N11.9 billion was released for capital education.

However, after his submission, a member of the committee and Senate Chief Whip, Senator Olusola Adeyeye, queried the rationale behind the increase in only the budget of parastatals by only about N10 billion while the budget of universities reduced by as much N16 billion.

Adeyeye wondered while parastatals which were meant to support the institutions should have their personnel budget increased by such a huge volume. He, therefore, demanded for an explanation.

“If you look at personnel cost on page 28, almost every sub-sector of the ministry lost some money except parastatals that got increase. What is special about the parastatals that they gained more than universities, colleges, polytechnics and unity schools? Why should the parastatals that are meant to serve them keep growing in personnel cost?” Adeyeye queried.

The minister pushed the question to the permanent secretary who for want of expression said they would go back to look into it.

She said: “We will go back and find the aggregate of the parastatals put together so that we can look into the details and find out those that are increasing and the difference between them.”

Dissatisfied by that response, Adeyeye insisted that the ministry must explain how a whopping sum of about N10 billion was added to the parastatals’ personnel budget at the expense of institutions which actually need budget increase.

He said: “The budget of the parastatals have N9 billion extra while others lose money. We can’t have a situation where schools are losing money and parastatals are gaining. How did parastatals have such a quantum leap?”

Responding again, Yemi-Esan said the reduction in personnel budgets of schools and colleges was not imposed on them. Rather, she said it was what they submitted that the ministry collated and submitted as their personnel costs.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/02/senate-uncovers-n10bn-hidden-in-education-budget/

AaaPeeeCeee ....change, and share money through the budget!!

IPOD COMMITTEE LOLZZZ

Watching with sociological imagination.

The problem of this nation is not party either pdp or apc but the people ruling!!!, Embezzlement is not limited to any party as far nigeria is concern. The worst part of it they will embezzled the money and go to church for testimony and thanksgiving. Our president please stand up firmly and deal with the enemy of this great nation. #saynotoembezzlement.

Indeed So Much Rot In The Nigerian System.


#Isorryfornigeria

Lools... Baba sef wan embezzle thru budget as he is doing with Estacode...

"The parastatals allocation for the year, according to the Senate Committee, increased at geometric progression by almost N10 billion .


To this end, the committee chairman, Senator Aliyu Wamakko, ruled that the permanent secretary and the ministry should go back to the drawing board and come up with a more sensible overhead cost, saying its discovery was that the huge sum was deliberately hidden under parastatals’ personnel cost".

This APC government is a complete FRAUD.

The fraud discovered by one of their own with details below to show you the high level fraud in the APC 2016 proposed appropriation bill.

This is the fifth part of the #SaatahBudgetSeries. This part promises to be the most interesting of all Ministries whose budgets I’ve analysed so far. With a budget increase of over 200%, the Federal Ministry of Interior should have a lot to offer us.

The total budget for the Federal Ministry of Interior stands at 498,453,097,241; 428,374,007,241 out of the total budget is allocated for “Recurrent Expenditure” while the remaining, a rather meagre 70,079,090,000 has been allocated for “Capital Expenditure.”

Firstly, following our tradition since the beginning of this budget analysis series, I’ll outline the agencies and institutions that find themselves under the Federal Ministry of Interior, so as to pass my message across in a very clear and understandable form. These agencies/institutions are as follows: Federal Ministry of Interior—HQTRS, Nigerian Prison Service, Nigerian Immigration Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Civil Defence, Immigration and Prison Service Board (CIPD), Custom, Immigration, Prison Pension Office (CIPPO), Federal Fire Service, Police Pension Board, Nigeria Police Academy , Police Formation and Command HQTRS.

FEDERAL MINISTRY OF INTERIOR

“Fellow Nigerians” the Federal Ministry of Interior has a budget for books. Err actually this isn’t a red flag, instead I find it beautiful, that since our President didn’t see reading as important enough to put it in his budget, others have decided to read. Now let’s begin the analysis in earnest. The Federal Ministry of Interior has a budget of 347,750,647 for the “Purchase of Computers.” In 2013, the Federal Ministry of Interior “Purchased Computers” worth 75,343,403. This year, they’ve taken their maddening wasteful spending 450% percent higher, to a towering 347,750,647. This is more than the total amount budgeted by the Ministry of Science and Technology on the same item for three years; 2014, 2015 and 2016.

The Federal Ministry of Interior has also appropriated the sum of 576,500,000 for the “Construction/Provision of Electricity.” I don’t know, but what I’ve deduced from that budget is that the Federal Ministry of Interior must have been operating with lanterns and candles since inception. Nothing else justifies the spending of such a huge amount of money. If you’re wondering what 576,500,000 can achieve, it’ll electrify 33 communities; 30 communities in Ondo and 3 communities in the FCT according to the budget of the National Rural Electrification Agency.

In 2014, the Federal Ministry of Interior budgeted88,706,193 for the “Repair/Rehabilitation of Office Buildings,” while in the 2015 budget, it was 24,464,846. In the 2016 budget, the “Rehabilitation/Repairs Office Buildings,” that was done in 2104 and 2105, “elephantined” by almost 2500% to 595,606,148. Another thing I want you to know is that according to the 2014 budget, the Ministry of Interior building was damaged by a storm, and the 24,464,846 in the 2015 budget was for storm damaged rehabilitation, compare with the 595,606,148 in the 2016 budget.

The Federal Ministry of Interior will spend 6,200,000,000 on “Research and Development”. Firstly, that is more than the budget for the Ministry of Women Affairs, 3,974,395,038. To put this in perspective, 32 Agricultural Research Institutes and Colleges will spend a cumulative total of 4,411,236,320 on “Research and Development.”

The 2016 budget takes a very predictable trend. I have noticed that where the drafters of the budget don’t find creative ways to budget money that’ll probably end up inpersonal bank accounts; they put it under “Research and Development.” The Federal Ministry of Interior isn’t different in any away, everything about this budget smells of high level graft and the budget for “Research and Development” does more than prove this. The funny thing about this is that, when the items are broken down, the amount for “Research and Development” is only 200,000,000 and the bulk of the money, 6,000,000,000 ends up going to the “Special Intervention Fund for Police Formations and Command.” While the Police Formation and Command with a total budget of 300,100,330,698 didn’t give a breakdown of how it plans to spend its capital budget.

The Nigerian Prison Service has a budget of 3,519,266,507 for the “Construction/Provision of Prisons” and another 5,093,363,237 for the “Rehabilitation/Repairs of Prisons.” The problem here isn’t the amount budgeted for these items. Such huge sums have been budgeted over the years, but yet our prison system remains the same or sometimes gets worse than it was met. I hope these monies will be channelled and properly utilised.

I feel the funniest part of the budget for the Nigerian Prison Service is the part where 500,000,000 was budgeted for “Research and Development. “Furtherbreakdown shows that that amount will actually be spent on “Capacity Building.” Talking of a real building, according to the budget of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, we can spend that same amount to get 6 blocks of 3 classrooms.

The Nigerian Immigration Service will spend 200,000,000 to “Acquire Land.” It is an open secret that government doesn’t buy land, they “collect” and “pay compensation”. I’d love to know how they plan to spend the 200,000,000 set aside of that purpose or maybe they’re compensating an entire village.

2,120,000,450is what the Nigerian Immigration Service will spend on “Security Equipment.” That’s an increase of over 800% from the 2014 budget for same item which stood at 258,000,000 and a 2500% increase from the 2015 budget where same item had a budget of 86,057,143.

The Nigerian Immigration Service spent 250,000,000 to “Construct Office Buildings” in 2014 and 133,302,386 in 2015. In the 2016 budget, the Nigerian Immigration Service changes the game; they have a budget of 1,301,229,706 for the same item. That’s an increase of over 400% from the 2014 budget and almost 1000% increase from the 2015 budget. There’s also a separate 500,000,000 that is meant for the “Rehabilitation/Repairs of Office Buildings.”

The Nigerian Immigration Service will also spend 450,000,000 for the “Provision of Solar Powered Boreholes.” They also want to spend 1,300,214,210 on the “Purchase of Patrol and Operational Vehicles.” Now, here’s the problem; they also budgeted another 1,385,131,167 for the “Purchase of All Terrain Vehicles for Land Patrol.” I would love to know the difference between these two items because they look like the same thing to me, “Patrol Vehicles.”

The Federal Fire Service has budgeted 5,622,131,167 for the “Procurement of Fire Fighting Equipment for Existing Fire Station in Abuja and Lagos.” Another 749,943,030 is budgeted for “Rehabilitation of Firefighting Equipment (Abuja and Lagos).” There seems to be an agreement that the rest of the country can burn to the ground.

The Police Formation and Command HQTRS failed to give a detailed breakdown of what their 17,009,090,000capital budget will be used for.

We have come to the end of the fifth part of my budget analysis series. What I’ve noticed with the budget for the Federal Ministry of Interior isn’t entirely different from what I’ve noticed with other Ministries; there is an inflation of budget sums in a lot of areas and there also exists some very unnecessary/vague items put in the budget with millions (or billions in some cases) allocated to them.

As I leave you to apply rational reasoning concerning this budget, let me add a little in-between: In the 2015 budget for the Ministry of Land and Housing, 200,000,000 was set aside for the “Completion of Construction of a Mausoleum and Library Complex in Honour of Late Rt. Hon. Dr NnamdiAzikiwe.” In this year’s budget for the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, 1,143,575,058is budgeted for the same item. Another 137,552,031 will be spent on “Provision of Furnishings in the New Mausoleum and Library Complex in Honour of Late Rt. Hon. Dr NnamdiAzikiwe.”Dr.NnamdiAzikiwe must be clapping in his grave for this Houdini-like stunt.

Saatah Nubari is on Twitter @Saatah

Cc Lalasticlala

Jesus is this y students score zero..... Kill this robbers now the Bible support it

Why not allow APC chop their own yams?

onagoodday:
AaaPeeeCeee ....change, and share money through the budget!!

if you keep quite no body will slap you

Budget of change

Wicked country and leaders. A piss chit -shame

The annoying thing about this is that they say they are fighting kwaruption

What a country. The rot is abysmal.

So Baba sef Wan chop im own.

I always said it is not about borrowing money from IMF but when we acquire the loan it still goes to the wrongs hand. Nigerian masses sorry, this problems is from those that surrendered the government

hh

Budget of 'RUINATION' in Engr. Onovo's voice

These ones are learning to steal yet.

Now I know why all these politicians rooted for Buhari. He is ignorant and not a stickler for details. He might not hear of this news cos his handlers will shield him from it.

And the fraud keeps growing.. This government will go down in history as the most fraudulent and useless ever. Soon Nigeria will be auctioned off in the following manner:


SE to be sold (since it's the most troublesome to this government) and the money claimed to be used to maintain the remaining part of the country. However, the money will be embezzled and another auctioning takes place.

SS to be sold since oil no longer has much value. Money made to be embezzled as usually, by the same Buhu and his cohorts..

SW the friendly enemy, to be sold to Benin Republic and then money made, embezzled again.

NC to be sold but money will not be enough to maintain the core north so eventually, the whole of northern Nigeria will then be sold off to Niger Republic and Chad..

This is not fair. Let them share to my side... I want to eat yam too.

Did Buhari not go through the budget before signing? Didn't his cabinet members go through the budget before ratifying it? Didn't the Budget Office scrutinise the budget before presenting it to Buhari? How come they didn't notice this? Or are they complicit?

This APC government is a total joke and a complete scam.