By Dipo Olowookere
The House of Representatives on Wednesday opened debate on the 2019 Appropriation Bill presented some weeks ago by President Muhammadu Buhari.
However, as the lawmakers commenced deliberations on the budget, with an estimate of N8.2 trillion, one of them raised a point of order to call his colleagues’ attention to some irregularities in the figures inserted in the appropriation bill.
Mr Chika Adamu, who discovered the errors, said the discrepancies in the figures quoted in the budget affected Education, Budget and National Planning, Finance and Office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).
“I want to, before my contribution, raise some issues, particularly some errors I noticed in the national budget.
“As everyone knew, the schedule in the budget consists of Part A, which is the statutory transfers; Part B, which is the debt servicing; Part C, recurrent expenditure and Part D, capital expenditure.
“I will raise some issues, which have to do with one, Ministry of Education; two, Ministry of Finance; and three, Ministry of Budget and National Planning and then, one observation with the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).
“When you go to the Education Ministry, in Part C, which is the recurrent expenditure, which consists of both personnel and overhead, you will realise that the budget is N462.2 billion, but when you go to the summary of the budget by the MDAs, number 41: 0.5.1.8 personnel now changed to about N539.6 billion.
“When you go to Ministry of Finance, the budget of the ministry in the recurrent expenditure in Part C is N10.8 billion.
“However, there is also an error when you go to the summary, which is number 21: 2.2.0 personnel is N7.4 billion, which is okay, but when you go to the overhead, it now becomes N2.26 trillion and, therefore, that has also changed.
“In the Ministry of Budget and Planning, in Part C is N9.3 billion, but, however, when you go to the summary by MDAs, which is number 28: 0.2.3.8 personnel in the Ministry of Budget and Planning, it has now become N66.21 billion. Then overhead also changed there; it is now N832.2 billion. Then the total, which is personnel and overheard in that aspect, has now become N1.49 trillion.
“The capital also has changed to about N655.9 billion, now giving us a total allocation of the Ministry of Budget and Planning, to N2.15 trillion, instead of N9.3 billion.
“Also, at the capital, which is D aspect, page 118 appeared only as ‘Federation.’ We don’t have any MDA called federation, but when I continued with the research, I realised that in that federation, there is a capital component of N31.8 billion.
“I found that the federation is in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, so why did they write federation?” In his remarks, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, said the matter would be transferred to the appropriate committee to meet with the ministries affected. According to him, the figures should be reconciled within 24 hours.
