The Senate on Tuesday resolved to probe the alleged
mismanagement of $3.8 billion Subsidy Recovery Fund (SRF) by the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
This is sequel to a motion moved at the plenary by
the Minority Leader, Senator Biodun Olujinmi, who came under Orders 42 and 52
to draw the attention of the Senate to the alleged mishandling of $3.8 billion SRF
in the custody of the NNPC.
The senator, while speaking on the matter of urgent
national importance, accused both the Managing Director and an Executive
Director of NNPC as sole signatories to the Fund "without recourse to the
National Assembly Joint Committee on Appropriation."
The account, she said, had become a slush fund, and
therefore, urged the Senate to compel its Committee on Petroleum (Downstream)
to ask the NNPC on why the Fund was being managed by the executive arm of
government without the knowledge of the legislature.
Contributing also, Senator Ali Ndume opposed the
suggestion that the Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) be allowed to look into
the matter, saying: "That call may not be necessary because if the
committee had done its oversight properly, it would have known what was going
on with the Fund.”
Ndume, who sat close to Senator Buka Abba, said he
had just been told by Abba "that the Committee had compromised
The Chairman of the Committee on
Petroleum(Downstream), Senator Kabir Marafa, was quick to respond by saying he
took exception to Ndume's reservation about his committee's competence,
although he also alluded to the fact that the said money may have become a
slush fund.
Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, while accepting
the need to look into the matter, however, stressed the need for the upper
legislative chamber to be guided by facts and figures.
"Let us go by the fact available before us on
this matter and not to be partisan," he further said.
The Senate president then named the Senate Leader,
Senator Ahmad Lawan, as the Chairman of an Ad-hoc committee that will look into
the matter and report back to the Senate in four days.
The Senate leader, in his reaction, said he would
decline to serve on the Committee but was overruled by the Senate president who
said: "Leader of Senate, there is no way you can exonerate yourself from
leadership, so you will chair the ad-hoc committee."
The Senate also approved the N242 .245billion
budget for the conduct of the elections by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) and security agencies.
The senators altered election budgetary proposals
made for the Nigeria Police, the Department of State Service (DSS) and office
of the National Security Adviser (NSA).
While the police in the original proposal forwarded
to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari through a virement
seeking letter in July has N30billion earmarked for it, Senate approved
N27.341billion for it just as it also reduced the N12,213,282,455.00 billion
proposed for DSS to N10.213billion .
The N5billion raked in from Police and DSS earlier
budgetary projections for the elections was however added to N4,281,500,000.00 billion
earmarked for the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) jerking it up
to N9.481billion .
The N189billion budgetary proposals for INEC,
N2.628billion for National Immigration Service (NIS) and N3.573billion for the
Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps were however retained and approved as
requested by the President Buhari.
Approval of the N242.245 billion elections budget
for 2019 by the Senate was sequel to recommendations made to that effect by its
Appropriation committee.
The Committee, in its report presented at plenary
by its Chairman, Senator Danjuma Goje, also differed with the president on
source of virement for the N242billion.
While the president in his July letter, urged the
federal lawmakers to vire the money from the N578billion special votes they
allegedly inserted into the N9.12trillion 2018 budget through addition of about
1,403 projects, the Senate, in its approval of the N242billion elections
budget, ordered for its virement from
Special Intervention Programme (both recurrent and capital).
Specifically, N194.7 billion out of the N242billion
would be vired from N350billion
recurrent component of the Special Intervention Programme while the balance of
N47.498billion would be vired from N150billion
capital component of the Special Intervention Programme .
Breakdown of the N242billion 2019 elections budget
as proposed by President Buhari in the virement include Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC)
N189,207,544,893.00billion; Office of the National Security Adviser
(ONSA) N4.281billion; Department of State Security (DSS) N12.213billion; Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps N3,573,534,500.00billion; Nigeria Police
Force N30,541,317,432.00billion and Nigeria Immigration Service N2,628,143,320.00billion. In his remark,
Saraki, said: "The much expected elections budget has been passed and
approved here in the Senate.
"It is the hope of the National Assembly and
Nigerians generally that with this approval, INEC and other relevant agencies
will ensure credible, free, fair and safe elections in 2019."
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