Senate summons Finance Minister, COAS over security votes

The Senate Committee on Army yesterday asked the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed; the Director-General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze and the Chief of Army Staff to appear before it next Tuesday to explain details of the funds so far released to the Nigerian Army to fight insurgency, banditry and other forms of insecurity from 2019 till date.

The chairman of the committee, Ali Ndume, at a meeting with the officials of the Ministry of Finance, flayed the minister for shunning the invitation of the panel.

Permanent Secretary, Special Duties in the Finance Ministry, Aliyu Shinkafi, told the committee that N75bn was appropriated and released in 2019; while additional funds appropriated N7bn from the service wide vote was also released 100 per cent, adding that N2.5bn was also released in 2019.

He said in 2020, N75bn was appropriated but N74.99bn was released.

He said in 2021, N100bn had been appropriated and N19.4bn for the first quarter.

“Just yesterday, we released N19.95bn for the second quarter. I believe that we’re on course as far as releases for these operations are concerned,” he said.

However, Ndume brought out a letter from the Chief of Defence Staff, which said the military authorities complained that they had shortfall as far as releases from the Finance Ministry was concerned.

“The letter from the Defence headquarters on the funding of Operations Lafiya Dole is claiming that they have a shortfall of N50bn in terms of releases and requested us to do a follow up on the matter,” Ndume said.

Shinkafi insisted that all the amount appropriated had been released

The committee asked the ministry officials to come with details of the releases.