…as FG plans payment of N25bn debts to local contractors
The House of Representatives on Wednesday via a motion approved the sum of N208 billion virement for President Muhammadu Buhari.
The House of Representatives on Wednesday via a motion approved the sum of N208 billion virement for President Muhammadu Buhari.
The amount passed was N28 billion higher than the N180 billion virement requested by President Buhari via a letter dated 25th October, 2016.
Included in the virement was the sum of N25 billion proposed for payment of local contractors and other liabilities.
Mustapha Dawaki, chairman, House Committee on Appropriation who sponsored the motion, explained that “affected agencies justified the need for intervention and approval of the virement for their respective agencies.”
He however noted that “there are other areas of critical needs with potentials for develooment and stimulating the economy and for which additional funds could be provided through virement from the special intervention programme.”
The breakdown of the increases showed that the fund for Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Missions) was jerked from N14,667,230,400 to N16,349,647,078 (representing N1,682,417,064); Public Complaint Commission got N2.5 billion as salary shortfall against the sum of N1.2 billion requested for while N25 billion was provided for payment of local contractors debts/other liabilities which was not captured by the Presidency.
However, the exact amount requested for other sub-heads were passed accordingly.
These include: N71,800,215,270 is for Public Service Wage Adjustment; N35 billion is for Amnesty Programme, while N19,792,018,400 is for mobilisation of corps members.
Other requests are: N13,933,093,000 for Operation Lafiya Dole; N12,708,367,476 for Nigerian Air Force; N5,205,930,270 for Internal operations of the Armed Forces; N2 billion for margin of increase in cost (service wide vote) and N1.5 billion is for Presidential Initiative on North East.
Under the Contingency subhead, N932,400,000 is for Cadet Feeding of Police Academy, Kano while N900 million is for augmentation of meal subsidy for Unity Colleges.
Dawaki also informed the House of the request for the virement of the sum of N300 million appropriated in the 2016 budget for the reconstruction of fallen towers, replacement of glass insulators for Gagarawa, Jigawa State which was initially approved for the construction of a 13KVA substation in Gwaram, Jigawa state under the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
Recall that Femi Gbajabiamila, Majority Leader, had on the 16th November, 2016 raised a substantive motion requesting the passage of the virement request to the appropriate Committees for further legislative action, which was approved without any dissenting voice.
