BY EDMOND ODOK – The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed says the Budget Office of the Federation is responsible for the alleged N206 billion Naira budget padding rocking the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
Typical of the numerous conflicts among government departments and agencies that have trailed the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, both the Finance and Humanitarian Affairs Ministries are currently in the public space denying and backtracking on earlier positions taken on the 2023 budget insertions.
According to the Minister of Finance, the N206 billion captured in the budget proposal of the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry was wrongly coded by the Budget Office as it was an allocation meant for the National Social Safety Nets Project (NSSNP) funded by the World Bank and domiciled in the Humanitarian Ministry.
Similarly, the Humanitarian Affairs Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, exonerated the Finance Ministry from the allegation of budget padding as widely reported in the media.
In her explanation on the controversial insertion in the budget, Mrs Zainab noted that the wrong coding resulted in the item being wrongly captured as ‘purchase of security equipment’ but that it has nothing to do with Budget padding, but just a mere oversight.
Maintaining that the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management should have drawn the Budget Office’s attention to the anomaly like her counterparts in other ministries, the Finance Minister said the error was not peculiar to the Ministry as Defence, and Federal Ministry of Power, among others, also noted such errors that were promptly corrected.
Going forward, she said effective collaboration among Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the government would help to forestall such oversight in future.
Speaking on the budget controversy, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Mr Aliyu Betera, expressed displeasure over the Humanitarian Affairs Minister continuous failure to appear before the committees, whenever she is invited for engagement.
Mr Betara said the Minister must appear in person to defend the Ministry’s budget which, according to him, she should be held responsible for its delayed passage by the House.
