President Muhammadu Buhari presenting the now
controversial budget before the National Assembly on
December 22, 2015.
Nigeria’s federal lawmakers are set to remove a whooping
sum of N37 billion from the 2016 budget presented by
President Muhammadu Buhari.
The budget which has been a subject of controversy since
it submission the Senate said it just uncovered 25 fresh
errors in it.
According to reports, the items involved are allocated
about N37, 025, 238, 407 which the Senate and House of
Representatives committees on Appropriation described
about N21,623,323,649 voted for office repairs as
avoidable.
The Nation newspaper in its report said mistakes were
made in the following eight areas: Duplication of budget
line items; Budget items with quantities not specified;
Budget items with no location; Large amount of money
being appropriated for rehabilitation/repairs of office /
residential buildings and purchase of office furniture and
fittings; Budget items repeated over the past four years;
Curious budget line items; Non-priority budget items; and
Wrongly classified budget items.Recall that President Buhari recently redeployed civil
servants he claimed were responsible for the budget
padding. Some persons have described the redeployment
as a slap on the writs of the civil servants and a shame on
the president’s anti-corruption war.
Quoting a source, the report said: “We have identified 25
new errors in the budget involving about N37, 025, 238,
407billion.
“From the budget, we have discovered that the vote for the
generation of 700 MW from Zungeru hydropower project
was duplicated seven times and titled
MOPWH161021632-40. For the same project, the amounts
voted are as follows N750m, N113, 465, 000, N139, 426,
180, N126, 624, 383, N93, 767, 500 and N160, 000, 000.
“The National Bureau of Statistics projected to spend N256,
920,000 and N230, 705, 000 in the same budget on
procurement of equipment, vehicles and furniture. At our
session, we were amazed that we could still be having two
estimates for the same project. Also, the Federal Roads
Maintenance Agency (FERMA) is planning to execute
Integration of Road Reference System with N150, 940,000
(FERMA 18015998) and N15,000, 000(FERMA 18021621)
respectively.
“On its part, the National Intelligence Agency(NIA) is
expected to use N2, 479, 581, 721 as refund to states for
Federal Government Road Projects and the Ministry of
Youth and Sport will spend N1, 731, 050,000 on kitting of
Armed Forces and the Federal Airport of Nigeria(FAAN) has
been allocated N340, 707, 625 for Wildlife Conservation.
These are evidence of padding still subsisting in the budget.
“From less than a dozen MDAs, over N21 billion can be
saved and re-allocated to create needed jobs for the
millions of unemployed youths.
“The money budgeted for rehabilitation/repairs
(N10,774,052,415.00) by the ministry of Interior alone is
more than double the entire budget of the Ministry of
Women Affairs (N3,974,395,038). “More money should
rather be voted for the Ministry of Women Affairs to be able
to invest in the economic empowerment of women.“The MDAs will not collapse if these projects are postponed
to a future date when the country can easily afford to
execute them.
“In the budget of the Office of the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation(OSGF), Procurement and
Installation of security system has become a recurring
decimal.”
“With due respect to SGF Babachir Lawal, we have realised
that those in charge of the budget of OSGF might have
committed blunders. For 2016, the OSGF has budgeted N1,
710, 322, 610 for procurement and installation of security
system. The same office budgetted the following amounts
in the last three years on the same item: N527,
000,000(2013); N1, 161, 356, 582(20140 and N316, 420,
274(2015).”

Ok

That's good..... We have a working national assembly that for once seem independent from the executive