The Finance, Budget, and National Planning Minister Hajiya Zainab Ahmed yesterday told the Senate that the Army got ₦1,008.84 trillion as budget releases between January 2019 and this year’s first quarter.
Mrs. Ahmed made the revelation when she appeared before the Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume-led Senate Committee on Army.
Citing a letter from the Chief of Defence Staff last week, Ndume said the military authorities complained that they had a shortfall of over ₦50 billion as far as fund releases from the Finance ministry was concerned.
Ahmed, however, gave the breakdown of how her ministry disbursed N1,008.84 trillion to the Army in the past two years as follows: ₦129.69 billion (Capital Expenditure); ₦39.76 billion (Overhead Cost); ₦681.79 (Personnel Cost); and ₦157.6 billion (Special Releases).
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She said that the ministry has been “responsible and responsive” in providing funds for the Nigerian Army.
Mrs. Ahmed said: ‘The Ministry of Finance and National Planning, and indeed, the President, priorities are given to funding for the Armed of Forces of Nigeria.
‘Apart from the fact that we try best efforts to fund what is provided for in the budget by almost 100 per cent, there has also been a lot of instances where the security service go to the President, get special approvals and we still provide funds.
‘So, perhaps what we are providing is not enough, but the fact is we provide what is budgeted and we provide what is approved.
‘Maybe, the thing to do in the meantime is to take stock of the real needs of the Nigerian Army. You have an opportunity in the supplementary budget that is coming in so that we can address some of that.’
On capital funding, the Minister said: ‘In 2019, what was budgeted for the Nigerian Army was ₦19.6 billion, adding that ₦12.84 billion was released, representing 64.37 per cent.
‘In 2020, the total capital budget for the Nigerian Army was ₦34.37 billion and this amount was released 100 per cent.
‘In 2021 (that is this current year), the total budget for the Nigerian Army is ₦29 billion as at April. We have released N17.98 billion of that, which is 68.92 percent. It means we are on course to also release 100 per cent.
‘There was an outside-of-budget spending because the need was higher than what was provided for in the budget. There was a total provision of ₦64.5 billion for procurement of military equipment that was provided for through the special approval of Mr. President‘ she added.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
