Unauthorised Budget: N2trn at stake as Reps seek to probe 63 Agencies
…Buhari’s allegations of illegal approvals of Budgets in view
…Lawmakers angered over circumventing legislative oversight
…Inflated submissions, extra-constitutional expenditure shroud Agencies’ spending
…NEITI to explain N960m personnel cost in 2022 budget for 43 staff
By Moses Adeniyi
Lamentation by President Muhammadu Buhari that Agencies of the Federal Government have robbed the government with undue expenditure over unauthorised budget has begun to take investigative dimension on the legislative part, as the National Assembly have commenced what would seem as its oversight function, probing into agencies found wanting of running unauthorised budget.
Moves by the House of Representatives have found no less than 63 agencies of the Federal Government to be summoned to answer to questions of running unauthorised budget summed to about N2 trillion.
The lawmakers seem to be angered by act of insolence of some Agencies, particularly some Government Owned Enterprises and Non-Treasury Funded Agencies, sidelining legislative process of seeking approval before running what they have seen as “Illegal Approvals of Budgets and Extra-Constitutional Expenditure.”
According to the lawmakers, Mr President never presented the alleged budgets running up to N2trn to the Parliament, neither the Speaker nor the Senate President sighted or read them on the floor.
Consequently, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Representatives has summoned the 63 agencies of the Federal Government, holding that that its investigation showed that there was no statutory approval of the budget involving the sum by the National Assembly.
The Chairman of the Committee, Oluwole Oke, in view of the summons issued, wrote a letter to the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, requesting for the evidence of the budget approals by the National Assembly.
The letter seeking evidence, dated November 8, 2022, was received at the Budget Office on November 10, 2022, having the House committee stating that the summons were sequel to the remark by President Muhammadu Buhari during his 2023 budget presentation to the National Assembly on October 7, that some agencies were operating on unauthorised budgets.
The letter titled ‘Re-Request for Information/Documents with Respect to Allegations of Illegal Approvals of Budgets and Extra-Constitutional Expenditure by Some Government Owned Enterprises and Non-Treasury Funded Agencies,’ read in part: “In pursuance of the power conferred on the National Assembly (Assembly) by Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as altered) (Constitution), Standing Rules of the House of Representatives, and based on Section 2 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act 2017, the Public Accounts Committee is conducting investigation into the allegation made by President Muhammadu Buhari, (Mr. President), during the presentation of the 2023 Appropriation Bill before a joint session of the National Assembly.
“Mr President alleged that some governments owned enterprises have been submitting their budget and getting it passed through some committees of the National Assembly outside of the process prescribed in Section 81(1) of the Constitution.
“In view of the above and in line with Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution, I hereby request that Budget Office of the Federation furnish the committee with the approved Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) budget of the following parastatals for the period 2015-2022.
“Please kindly submit a soft copy and 15 hard copies of the above documents/information to Suite 4.23 House of Representatives Building, National Assembly, on or before the close of work on Friday 16th November, 2022.
“Over N2 trillion was spent illegally. Mr President has never presented or assented to these budgets. They are to tell Nigerians why they are operating illegal budgets; budgets that have not gone through the due process of lawmaking.
“Mr President never presented them to the Parliament neither the Speaker nor the Senate President sighted or read them on the floor.
“All the agencies fingered have all been invited.”
…NEITI to explain N960m personnel cost in 2022 budget for 43 staff
This is just as issues bordering on inflated submmissions by Agencies of the Federal Government have also formed concerns of the National Assembly recently.
In a suspected case of infraction, the Senate has queried the expenditure of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in its 2022 budget.
The probe followed the appearance of the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya, before the Senator Matthew Urhoghide (PDP, Edo South) led Senate Committee to present his 2023 budget for the first time.
Ogbonnaya in his reading of the 2022 budget performance of the Agency, mentioned the Personnel Cost of the agency was N960 while overhead cost stood at N760.9 million and the capital budget was N344 million, an account that struck attention of the lawmakers.
He further asserted that 51 percent of personnel cost has been spent, while 58 percent of overhead cost was spent and only 50 percent of capital has been released so far, attracted more concern.
Suspecting infractions, the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Urhoghide, wondered how the agency spent only 51 percent of its personnel cost as at November 2022.
Suspecting that it was a case of over-bloated personnel cost in the agency, Urhoghide said: “You have only taken 51 percent of your personnel cost at November; your personnel cost is really really too high.
“You have only two months and you have just collected 51 percent of your personnel cost.
“This is one case of personnel budget over-bloated; it is that it is systemic leakage.
“We are going to reduce your personnel cost to less than N500 million.”
In his response to the questioning, the Executive Secretary explained that when the agency started operations, it was only on oil and gas, but that now the agency has moved into solid minerals and consequently in need of more manpower to carry out its operations.
According to him, the NEITI currently has 43 staff and that the Agency had approval to recruit more staff, made available in the 2022 budget and the process had just been concluded.
He added that the newly-recruited 70 staff were already captured by IPPIS and have not been paid.
However, Senator Ibrahim Danbaba directed the Executive Secretary of NEITI to submit the nominal role of the agency to ascertain what he told the lawmakers.
Recall dust was raised last week when the National Population Commission (NPC) was queried over N1.9billion spent on presidential summit in villa and conferences organised across the country.
The House of Representatives Committee on Population at the budget defence in Abuja, last Wednesday, challenged the NPC directors to make an oral presentation of the N1.9 billion expended for summit and conferences.
Lawmaker, Gboluga Ikengboju (Ondo-APC) moved the motion for the NCP to go back and take a critical look at the discrepancies in the document they presented to the committee.
According to him, “In view of the discrepancies that cannot be justified by the Commission and the fact that the 2022 format cannot be accepted, we want the Commission to go back and provide more detail.
“We cannot be speculating over taxpayers’ money. I hereby move that they should go back and tidy up these documents.”
Lawmaker, Ifeanyi Momah (PDP-Anambra), a member of the committee expressed worry over how N129 million was used for a one-day seminar at the villa.
He further asked if the money spent on the presidential summit held at the villa was meant only for the villa event or stakeholders conferences held in various states.
The lawmaker also queried the Commission why the N5 billion budgeted for the mock census did not reach the staff deployed for that purpose in Anambra.
He lamented that some of the staff deployed to Anambra had to reach out to him and other stakeholders for financial support when the money budgeted for that purpose was not forthcoming.
Momah narrated that he alongside other stakeholders had to bail the staff out while calling on the commission to offer explanations on what they used the money for.
Lawmaker, Bamidele Salam (PDP-Osun) had also queried why the money used at the villa for the summit was not captured in the 2022 budget.
The Commission was demanded to furnish the committee with expenditure patterns at the villa summit and the stakeholders’ conferences at the state level.
The committee also demanded to know how N5 billion was spent on the mock census, while directing NCP to provide explanation for the utilisation of the N1.9 billion spent by the commission.
The committee gave the commission till Nov. 16 to give feedback.
The representative of NCP Chairman, Mr Bala Banye, Chairman, Finance and General Purpose Committee of the commission, had earlier mentioned that the money spent covered the summit and states conferences.
According to him, the Commission had documentary evidence of how the money was spent, saying the understanding is that the summit was also done in all states of the Federation.
NPC Director of Finance, Mr Fagbemi Benjamin, who was put on oath by the committee said the money spent at the villa event was N129 million, adding that the remaining N1.2 billion was for the 36 states and FCT.
The NPC last Wednesday sought to defend before the Senate a proposed expenditure of a total sum of N532.7billion to conduct national census in April 2023.
Speaking on Wednesday in Abuja when he appeared before the Senator Sahabi Ya’u, APC Zamfara North led Senate Committee on National Population and Identity Management to defend the 2023 budget estimates, Chairman of the Commission, Alhaji Nasir Isa Kwarra noted that the N532.7billion was purely a proposal for the conduct of the 2023 census.
He said that aside the N10billion budgetary proposal for 2023 fiscal year earmarked for NPC, the sum of N532,795,604,726 billion is estimated for conduct of 2023 Census.
“NPC is ready to re-write the history of census in Nigeria by making the 2023 not only accurate, credible, reliable but acceptable to all Nigerians,” he had said.
He had explained that the proposed sum for conduct of 2023 census, covers post enumeration survey and that the exercise will be a great departure from the past in terms of keying into the issue of climate change.
