N’Assembly committee detects fresh flaws in 2016 budget

The Senate and House Joint Committee on Appropriation has detected fresh errors in the 2016 budget, investigations by The PUNCH have revealed.

It was gathered that the errors were responsible for the failure of the committee to present its report to the two chambers of the National Assembly on Wednesday as it had promised.

Investigations, however, showed that the errors would not affect the plan of the National Assembly to transmit the budget to President Muhammadu Buhari before Easter as efforts were being made to correct them.

It was learnt that one of the anomalies detected was in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, where provisions had been made for procurement and installation of security systems every year since 2013.

For example, in 2013, the sum of N527,000,000 was budgeted for the item; in 2014, N1,161,356,582 was allocated to the same item; in 2015, N316,420,274 was budgeted for it; and N1,710,322,610 is to be spent on the procurement and installation of security system in the SGF office in 2016.

The committee also detected items without project locations in the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing (headquarters).

Such projects include the construction of a block of three classrooms at the cost of N85,592,483; construction of a maternity centre for N91,124,858; and the allocation of N172,623,767 for the building of skill acquisition centres.

The committee pointed out that oversight function would not be possible without project locations.

It was learnt that the committee also discovered anomalies in the allocation of large amounts of money for the rehabilitation and repair of office buildings as well as purchase of office items and fittings.

Not less than N21bn was allocated to such repairs and purchase at the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the government.

The committee also detected duplication of items. For example, N2.3bn was earmarked for former heads of state in the service wide vote of the Ministry of Budget and Planning, while N400,190,000 was allocated to the affairs of the former heads of state in the SGF office.

Other examples of duplication include allocation of N256,920,000 for the purchase of equipment, vehicles and furniture for the National Bureau of Statistics and the N230,705,000 by the NBS for the same purpose.

It was also learnt that the committee discovered instances where allocations for the purchase of items were made without stating the quantities to be bought.

Such include the construction of solar boreholes at the cost of N140m in the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing and in the National Power Training Institute, N81m was budgeted for operational vehicles.

The committee described some items as curious. These include the allocation of N340m for wildlife conservation at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and N150m for growing girls and women project at the Federal Road Maintenance Agency.

Another curious budgetary item is the refund of N2,479,581,721 to states for federal roads, which was placed under the National Intelligence Agency.

When contacted, the Senate spokesperson, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, said the errors had been corrected at the committee stage.

He said that there were no fresh errors and challenged anyone with contrary information to publish the source.

Abdullahi said, “The errors in the budget were identified at the various committee levels. The Appropriation committees of both chambers had jointly scrutinised the document and had come up with an error-free copy.

“As a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, I can confirm to you that I am not aware of any fresh error discovered after the joint committee of the two chambers had worked on the budget.

“I challenge anyone with contrary information to publish it together with the source.”

But opposition party lawmakers told The PUNCH that the report was not submitted because there were still areas to be re-touched.

For example, the Minority Leader of the House, Mr. Leo Ogor, said the report was undergoing “finishing touches.”

Ogor added, “There are areas that require finishing touches. It will cut across several parts of the budget.

“But, I know it is something that will be quickly sorted out and the report will be laid by the grace of God tomorrow (today).”

Some candidates who sat for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, organised by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, have rejected their scores to the examination being sent to their phones, saying the results are beyond their expectations. JAMB-LOGOSpeaking to Vanguard Learning, some candidates said JAMB is intentionally tampering with and failing candidates. For Anuoluwapo Oni, “I wrote the exam on March 5 but my result was tampered with as another person’s result was sent to me and posted on the JAMB website. Please note that I am not the only one with this problem, and we need a platform to voice our complaints.” For Joy Ezeani, “2016 UTME candidates, especially those that took their exams on 8th to10th of March 2016, are pleading with JAMB officials to stop scoring us too low. The systems we used were not good as they were always tripping off and we would have to wait for the server to come up. That really wasted our time.” In the same vein, Femi Adeoti said “JAMB is intentionally failing candidates and most of my friends and classmates are negatively affected. If you do very well, JAMB will score you 36 or less. I am really pained because I am a distinction student from Yaba College of Technology, so I wonder how I can score 184 in ordinary UTME. Please help us get our messages across.” Calling for the scrapping of JAMB as its objectives have been compromised, 22 years old Umar Ali from Kano State, said this year’s examinations show that JAMB can’t organise credible assessment of students for admission into tertiary institutions. He said: “The CBT mode of examination is a very good development if there is constant electricity, but this year’s exam was conducted at a time when electricity generation is below 1,570 MW. “

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/candidates-reject-utme-scores-demand-scrapping-of-jamb/