Wike, Umahi, INEC, others defend N177trn supplementary budget before Reps

Some members of President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet and the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, defended the N2.177 trillion supplementary budget before the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation on Wednesday.

Those who appeared before the committee include the Minister of Works, David Umahi; Minister of Defence, Alhaji Abubakar Badaru; Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Alhaji Abubakar Kyari; and FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike.

Others include the Director of the Department of State Service, Yusuf Bichi, and service chiefs, among others.

Speaking during the budget defence, Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Abubakar Bichi, said the N2,176,791,286,033 Supplementary Appropriation Bill sent to the National Assembly earlier this week was meant to enhance security, food, road construction, bridge construction, and address the housing deficit.

Bichi said the budget was “specifically structured to improve the country’s security, food security, and critical road infrastructure sectors and to bridge the housing deficit in the country, including slum upgrades and urban renewal.

“It will also support the provisional wage to workers and cash transfers to vulnerable Nigerians. It will also cater to the upcoming off-cycle elections in Kogi, Bayelsa and Imo States,” he said.

The lawmaker noted that out of the sum of 476,543,847,421 proposed for Ministry of Defence, the sum of N215,937,945,659 is for recurrent expenditure while N260,605,901,762 is for capital expenditure.

He said of the N200 billion proposed for Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, N104.800 billion is for recurrent expenditure, while N95.200 billion is for capital expenditure.

From the sum of N50 billion proposed for police formations and commands, N29,661,660,269 is for recurrent expenditure, while N20,338,339,731 is for capital expenditure.

Out of the total sum of N29,700,606,916 proposed for the office of National Security Adviser, N27,402,410,057 is for recurrent expenditure, while N2,298,196,859 is for capital expenditure.

The sum of N100 billion was also proposed for Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA); N49,046,831,697 is for the Department of State Services (DSS); N28 billion is for the State House; N300 billion is for Federal Ministry of Works; N100 billion is for Federal Ministry of Housing; N615 billion is for service-wide vote; N210.500 is for capital supplementation; and the sum of N18 billion is for Independent Electoral Commission (INEC).

“We have invited the relevant MDAs to defend and shed more light on their submissions. At the end of the hearing, we will collate our analysis into a report and send it back to the House.

“I have divided this into two sections: we will start with the non-security agencies, and later, we will go into an executive section for the security agencies,” Bichi said.

Also speaking, the Chairman, House Committee on FCT, Muktar Aliyu Betara, disclosed that the Executive sent only N100 billion to the National Assembly from the N300 billion requested for FCTA.

He further disclosed that N200 billion will be captured and considered during the 2024 budget defence.