Executive asked us to cut MDAs’ budgets for 2019 elections – Senator

Posted by Admin | 5 years ago | 1,762 times



The Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Rafiu Ibrahim, says the Senate’s decision to review the supplementary budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission and security agencies for the 2019 general elections is based on a request from the Executive.

He said the insinuations that the senate unilaterally cut the budgets of critical Ministries Departments and Agencies were false, adding that the Executive itself chose the 30 MDAs from where the funds would be moved from.

In a statement on Friday, the senator noted that the senate had on October 16 passed the N242, 245,050,100 virement request with the stipulation that it should be funded from the Service Wide Vote, but had to rescind and reconsider its position, following pressure on members of the Appropriation Committee by the executive.

He said, “The Executive came up with a counter-proposal that asked that the election be funded through both the Service Wide Vote and the budgets of 30 MDAs on a pro-rata basis. This is why the Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee, Senator Danjuma Goje, had to come up with a motion to rescind and reconsider the source of funding contained in the original approval granted by the Senate.

“So, if you take a close look at the Senate’s Order paper of Wednesday, November 7, 2018, you will see that N121,122,525,050, which represents half of the entire supplementary budget, was sourced from 30 MDAs chosen by the Executive, while the other N121,122,525,050 was taken from the Service Wide Vote.”

 

 


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