The Senate has rejected the report of its Committee on Drugs and Narcotics after it uncovered the document illegally contained N4.5 billion meant for the construction of Police barracks in the 2022 budget for National Drug Law Enforcement Agency(NDLEA).
Presenting the report, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Drugs and Narcotic, Senator Hezekiah Dimka, said his Committee uncovered the anomaly in the course of scrutinizing the budget document presented to it by the Ministry of Finance and quickly raised the alarm.
It was on the basis of this that the Committee on Appropriation chaired by Senator Barau Jubrin turned down the report on the budget for NDLEA and asked the Committee to go and correct the padded N4.5billion.
The N4.5 billion padding in the budget for NDLEA was uncovered a day after the Senate Committee on Environment chaired by Senator Ike Ekweremadu uncovered a whopping N16b proposed in the 2022 Appropriation Bill for the repayment of the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP.
Making his presentation, the Chairman Senate Committee on Sports and Youth Development, Senator Obinna Ogba, called for greater investments by government in sports infrastructure.
In the area of youth development, Ogba made a passionate appeal to the Federal Government to augment the daily feeding allowance of members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
He said “the arrangement where government spend N1,000 as feeding fee on a prisoner a day and N600 on a corps member is not good enough and should be reviewed.”
Responding, members of the Committee on Appropriation, Senator Smart Adeyemi and Stella Odua called on the Federal government to do more for sports and see it as a veritable tool to boost the economy.
On the fate of Super Eagles Coach, Gernot Rohr, Obinna Ogba disclosed that himself and a few others in the Board of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) were disposed to the idea of relieving the German of his job following his strings of poor performances.
He said in doing so, proper care must be taken to ensure Nigeria did not violate any of the rules of the world football body, FIFA, which could come with dire consequences for the country’s football.
He therefore called for understanding on the part of the Nigerian people.
Earlier, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, Kashim Shettima, defended his Committee’s report on the budget of the Ministry to the satisfaction of the Appropriation committee which praised it for doing a perfect job.
All of these was as the President of the Senate on Tuesday gave the Jubrin Barau-led Committee on Appropriation fresh deadline to complete its work on the 2022 budget by Wednesday.
The deadline, according to Lawan, was to enable the National Assembly meet with the December 14 timetable it had set for itself for the passage of the 2022 budget.
Stay ahead with the latest updates! Join The ConclaveNG on WhatsApp and Telegram for real-time news alerts, breaking stories, and exclusive content delivered straight to your phone. Don’t miss a headline — subscribe now!
