2019: How N121b Virement May Affect N-Power And Other SIP Projects

NASS Forces Buhari To Divert Fund Meant For Poor Nigerians

At least N121 billion of the N242 billion federal lawmakers approved for the 2019 general elections will be drawn from funds meant to cater for poor Nigerians.

The money is to be drawn from the N500 billion allocated to the Special Intervention Programme (SIP), a fund set aside for the social safety programmes of the President Buhari administration.

The decision to divert the fund for this use, Premium Times report was the brainchild of Nigerian lawmakers who picked on the cash as the best source of funding for the elections, presidency officials say.

On November 7, the Senate approved a N242 billion virement for INEC and other agencies for the conduct of the 2019 general election, Naija News recalls.

Virement means the funds are re-assigned to different subheads other than previously approved in the budget.

While granting President Buhari’s request on the matter, the lawmakers ordered that N121 billion be sourced from the capital allocations of 30 agencies while another N121 billion should be sourced from the SIPs.

Mr Buhari, in his letter to the Senate on July 17, asked the lawmakers to delete self-enrichment projects they smuggled into the 2018 budget to free funds for more important projects.

The president also requested that part of the funds that would be recovered after the removal of the corrupt insertions be used in financing the elections.

Mr Buhari had accused lawmakers of smuggling 6,403 projects of their own, amounting to N578 billion, into the 2018 budget.

With the National Security budget being cut, and a call for the funding of social intervention programmes in crime–torn communities;

— Peter David Phillips (@DrPeterPhillips) August 29, 2017

In a letter to the Senate in July, the president said he would not submit a supplementary budget to fund priority projects or the election budget. Instead, he urged the lawmakers to remove their projects so that more money could be available for more important projects.

Nigerian senate chambers

“Accordingly, I invite the distinguished senate to consider, in the national interest, relocating some of the funds appropriated for the new projects which were inserted into the 2018 budget proposal totalling N 578, 319, 951, 904 to cover the sum of N228, 854, 800, 205 required as noted above,” Mr Buhari wrote.

But in passing the 2019 election budget virement, the senators acted contrary to the president’s request.

Instead of approving funding for the election by removing the alleged frivolous projects, the lawmakers directed the president to cut N121 billion from the special projects meant for poor Nigerians.

A presidency official familiar with the matter said Mr. Buhari was ‘arm-twisted’ to accept the lawmakers’ action, and was disappointed that “lawmakers could even suggest that money should be taken from the poor to fund INEC”.

The official said the presidency has remained quiet over the matter because it does not want to be distracted at this time with any crisis with the National Assembly.

If the president implements the lawmakers’ resolution, the federal government will be left with far less cash for the N500 billion interventionist projects targeted at indigent Nigerians.

Programmes such as Home Grown School Feeding Programme for primary school pupils; the Conditional Cash Transfer to the extremely poor; the N-Power volunteer Corps 500,000 jobs intervention scheme for university graduates; and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, which is essentially a loan scheme handled by the Bank of Industry may suffer.

Senator Danjuma Goje wants the FG to stop the Social intervention programmes @NSIP_NG

School feeding programme @NHGSFP

The training of youths plus 20k/month stipend @npower_ng

Paying vulnerable Nigerians 5k/Month @HUPcct

These senators have lost touch with reality. #Shame

— Adeda (@tosinadeda) April 7, 2018

Idayat Hassan, the director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) frowned at the action of the lawmakers, saying it showed the lawmakers always act in their own personal interests.

“It tells us the nature of politics in Nigeria,” Ms Hassan said “The politics is such that the interest of the people are never consistently followed. It is the interest of the political class that actually matters (to them). That is what is playing out.”

“Now the National Assembly is dipping their hands into funds for social programmes for poor people,” Mr. Lawal said. “They did not dip their hands into the recurrent expenditure that pays them salaries and bogus allowances, that of the executive or heads of parastatals.

“Now they want to take something that benefits poor people. It tells you that democracy as it is today and the rule of law works for the elites, not for the poor people.”

But lawmakers said they took the decision with the best of intention and in the interest of the Nigerian people.

Sabi Abdullahi, the spokesperson to the Senate, said lawmakers adopted the controversial virement proposal for two reasons.

“We considered two things,“Mr. Abdullahi said. “One was the ease with which the virement descision could be taken. The other is the historical performance of the social intervention projects.

“We realised that they (the executive) have never exhausted the allocation made to the SIPs in the past years. So we believed that by viring some amounts from the allocation made to it in the 2018 budget, we will not be infringing on the SIP Projects.

“What we did was done with the best of intention and to find a workable solution for an urgent national problem. Besides, all the projects in the budget are targeted at the poor and other Nigerians and it is wrong to create the impression that the poor was targeted.”

The fellows in the @NGRSenate will stop at nothing to derail President @MBuhari's Social Intervention Programmes. What sort of people do we have as Senators for God's sake? https://t.co/hfDP3QLIch

— Bright Eugene VII (@BryteDude) October 12, 2018

Laolu Akande, the spokesperson for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, in whose office the implementation of the SIPs is domiciled, confirmed that releases for the SIPs in the past two years have been low.

“The programme got N140billion out of the N500billion budgeted for it in 2017,” Mr. Akande said. “In 2016, only N80 billion of the budgeted N500 billion was released. So the total sum so far released is N220billion of N1 trillion budgeted for the programme within the two-year period.”

The presidential spokesperson, however added, “The releases so far cannot be a justification for cutting the budgetary allocations to the programme.”

When asked if the budgetary cut effected by the lawmakers will affect the implementation of the programme this year, Mr. Akande said that has yet to be determined.