After Having His Rep Turned Down, SGF Babachir Lawal
Claims Death Of Sports Minister’s Wife Caused His Absence At Budget Defence
When He Finally Appeared Before Senate
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr.
Babachir Lawal, on Monday appeared
before the Senate Committee on Federal
Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs to defend the N9.88bn budgeted by his
office for 2017.
Lawal, who was billed to appear before the lawmakers on
Thursday, had sent the Permanent Secretary (General Services) Office of the
SGF, Mohammed Bukar, but the committee rejected the representation, insisting
that the SGF must appear in person.
While appearing before the lawmakers on Monday, Lawal explained
that his absence was caused by the death of the wife of the Minister of Sports,
Solomon Dalung.
The meeting between the SGF and
the committee, which lasted about 45 minutes, was attended by the Chairman,
Tijjani Kaura (APC, Zamfara North) and the Vice-Chairman, Suleiman Hunkuyi
(APC, Kaduna North).
Speaking on the 2017 budget
proposal of the Office of the SGF, Lawal said his office proposed N9.882,782,
935 for 2017.
Out of this, the SGF said
N3,408,763,591 was proposed for personnel costs; while N3,781,628,226 was
proposed for overheads, an increase of N2bn when compared to the 2016
appropriation.
According to the SGF, the amount
proposed for overheads would be used for funding the activities and programmes
of other offices headed by the permanent secretaries in the OSGF, as well as
activities and programmes of political office holders such as the special
advisers and senior special assistants to the President.
Lawal also said his office
budgeted N2,692,391,118 for capital projects for the fiscal year.
Lawal decried that funds
appropriated to the Office of the SGF in the 2016 budget were grossly inadequate
to meet some of the responsibilities of the office.
The lawmakers, in their separate
responses, agreed with Lawal that the 10 per cent release by the Ministry of
Finance to the OSGF in 2016 was insufficient, particularly against the backdrop
of what was proposed.
The committee pointed out that
the development was an indication that there was a problem between the Budget
Office and the Ministry of Finance, which must be tackled.
Hunkuyi, while commending the
Federal Government for adequate releases to ministries, departments and
agencies in 2016, stated that the committee would investigate the poor release
of funds to the OSGF.
“Something is definitely wrong
and we need to get to the root of what went wrong. If it is a problem between
finance and budget, we need to get at it and understand what it is. It is
unlike this government to do that. We need to come down to what went wrong;
where and who is in charge of that and remedy it,” he said.
Drawing the attention of the SGF
to the non-payment of allowances to former presidents, Hunkuyi demanded to know
if same was captured in the 2017 budget.
The SGF, in his response, said
the allowances for former presidents had been “sufficiently” covered in the
2017 budget, “though not openly budgeted for in the proposal.”
Punch
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