Deputy senate president Ike Ekweremadu has accused President Muhammadu
Buhari of using military style in asking for extra money to fund
capital projects. Ekeremadu made this assertion on the floor of the
upper house of legislature as the senators debated on Buhari’s request
for N180bn virement. Ekweremadu noted that the president should have
requested for a supplementary budget and not virement of funds which
he said was a military-style demanding for extra funding beyond the
budget. President Buhari’s letter requested that he be allowed
N180billion funds to pay capital projects which he highlighted thus:
“This request has risen due to a number of reasons, including
shortfalls in provisions for personnel costs, inadequate provision ab
nitio for some items like the amnesty programme, continuing
requirements to sustain the war against insurgency, and depreciation
of the naira. “However, considering the fact that the budgeted
revenues are running behind target largely due to renewed violence in
the Niger Delta, and there are no supplementary revenue sources, the
most viable option for now is the virement of appropriated funds from
heads and sub-heads that may not be fully utlised before the end of
the year. “The security-related lines in the service wide vote,
specifically operations internal for the armed forces (N13bn) and
operation Lafiya Dole (N8bn) have been totally released while the
Nigerian air force needs about (N12, 708, 367, 476) to cover the
foreign exchange differentials in the procurement of its critical
capabilities.
“The contingency vote of N12bn has a balance of only N1, 827, 570,
443. It is considered necessary to augment this vote in the light of
frequently emerging contingencies. “Only N20bn (already fully
released) was provided in the 2016 budget for the Niger Delta amnesty
programme. Consequently, the allowances to ex-militants have only been
paid up to May 2016. This is creating a lot of restiveness and
compounding the security challenges in the Niger Delta.” The senate
eventually approved the extra funds but granted N213billion,
N33billion more than the president requested and N5billion more that
the House of Representatives approved.