The Ministry of Finance has stated that the N206.24 billion for National Social Safety Net projects allocated to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management was incorrectly coded by the Budget Office.
This was revealed by Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed before the House Appropriation Committee on Tuesday.
The committee has been investigating the N206 billion and was visibly angry at the absence of the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Hajiya Sadiya Farouk.
Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed told the committee that the Budget Office incorrectly coded the item, citing that the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management should have brought the anomaly to the budget office’s attention, as had her counterparts in other ministries.
- “The project was described correctly in the 2023 budget presentation, but unfortunately, the Budget Office used the wrong code.” citing that this resulted in it being captured as “Security Equipment Purchase” in the budget preparation system.
He added that budget preparation had a limited range of coded descriptions of programs and projects.
He also pointed out that other ministries, including the Ministry of Defense and the Federal Ministry of Energy, among others, also made the same mistake and urged the collaboration of the MDA to eliminate the errors.
Rep. Muktar Betara, Chairman of the House Appropriation Committee, warned that,
- “Most of the time the committee calls the minister, but she refuses to come. If she’s not ready for the job, she should quit.” citing the absence of the humanitarian minister.
The Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, represented by the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr. Nasir Gwarzo, said:
- “The minister said that she did not understand the budget code, it was the media that reported the error as filler.
- “We do not go to the media refuting the work that the committee or the Ministry of Finance has done, but we write to clarify what was given.
The amount of money in question was a counterpart financing granted by the World Bank. If it had been done without appropriation, Nigerians would not have known what was borrowed,” he said.
For the record: Remove Nairametrics latest report week the Nigerian Senate summoned Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed over the insertion of N206 billion into the 2023 budget of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
the minister was summoned by the Senate Special Duties Committee, chaired by Senator Yusuf Yusuf on Monday during a meeting with Sadiya Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, on the ministry’s defense budget for 2023.
The humanitarian minister said that the money was for projects in 2022, but it was not released and now it is repeated almost 10 times.