‘N16b hidden vote found in Environment Ministry’s budget’

There was a ‘strange N16 billion’ vote in the 2022 budget estimates of the Ministry of Environment, the Chairman, Senate Committee on the Environment, Ike Ekweremadu, claimed yesterday.

The senator told reporters that a similar discovery was made in the ministry’s budget for the outgoing year.

Ekweremadu spoke after he submitted the budget estimates of the ministry to the Senate Committee on Appropriation, in Abuja.

He said: “Last year, as I said, there was N6 billion in the environment budget for the servicing of a multilateral loan regarding erosion control.

“Regrettably, about N1.5 billion of it was released to environment and later, the Ministry of Finance wrote, saying it was a mistake that was supposed to be from the Service Wide Vote from where we service most of the loans.

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“So, we took it in good faith but surprisingly we now got another N16 billion for the same reason from the Ministry of Environment and because there was a directive from the leadership of the National Assembly that we should not tamper with monies provided for multilateral loan.

“But we decided to find out what it is all about, eventually we invited the ministry who now said by the time they got their envelope, the money they sent to ministries to distribute to agencies.

“There was no such amount so by the time the money came to National Assembly, there was this N16 billion for the servicing of the new multilateral loan.

“We asked when this money is due for servicing, they said it has a 10 year moratorium, we can’t be providing for it until 2023.

“We also found out that about 21 states are benefiting from it and it is these states that will pay the loan and not the Federal Government.

“So, it is either we wait until 2023 before making provisions for it or we ask the states to start making provisions for it if they have to pay now.

“Even if the Federal Government has to pay, it has to go through the service wide votes, not the respective budgets of the MDAs, it is wrong. The anomaly is untidy.”