THE Senate yesterday began the process to provide a legal framework to create over N540 billion annually for the police as development fund.
This came to light as a Bill for an Act to establish the Nigeria Police Development Fund and related matters 2017 scaled second reading in the upper chamber.
The bill seeks to provide a legal framework for the management and control of the special intervention fund to be known as Police Development Fund.
The fund is to be created for the training and retraining of personnel of the Police, provision of equipment, offices and barrack accommodation and related facilities to enhance police security service delivery.
Sponsor of the bill, Senator Abu Ibrahim, in his lead debate, noted that he was convinced that the enactment of the bill into law would encourage the police to put in their best and serve the country better.
Part of the financial implication of the bill included an amount consisting 0.5 per cent of the total revenue accruing to the Federation Account; five per cent of the net profit of companies operating business in Nigeria and 30 per cent of monies from cyber security fund.
Aids, grants and assistance from international bilateral and multinational agencies, non-governmental organisation were also proposed as sources of fund for the police fund.
Ibrahim, who is also chairman, Senate Committee on Police Affairs, gave a total figure of N450 billion as annual accruals to the fund.
The Katsina South lawmaker proposed that to enlarge the funding, the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) on petroleum products although VATable was not being collected.
He noted that with only two per cent of VAT income from petroleum products set aside for the police, it would translate to approximate earning of N51.76 billion at 2015 consumption of petroleum products.
He said additional funding that could be explored for the fund was increase in VAT rate from five per cent to between 7.5 per cent and 10 per cent with two per cent of the increase allocated to the fund.
The increase, he said, would generate on annual basis a minimum of N25 billion.
Ibrahim said the implementation of the proposal would require an amendment to the VAT Act in its entirety to avoid the increase being seen as an additional cost.
He explained that the proposed increased was informed by the fact that the five per cent VAT rate regime operational in the country is the lowest in the West African sub-region.
The lawmaker noted that the dilemma of the police as far as overhead cost allocation is concerned, could be seen from an analysis of what is required for fueling and maintenance of police vehicles, what is needed to provide kits for police personnel and the amount required to fund local travels and transport.
“The implication of the estimate is that the entire sum of N9,250,565,307 projected for all subheads in the overhead cost for police formations and command in the 2017 budget is not even enough to provide minimal fueling and maintenance cost for police operational vehicles for five months.
The senator said the basic requirement to provide adequate and appropriate items of kits for police personnel annually is N14,583,671,264 as against the N752,298,724 earmarked in the 2017 budget.