The Senate Committee on Army has summoned the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed; the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru and the Director General of the Budget Office, Mr. Ben Akabueze on N199billion anti-terror fund spending.
The Ministry of Finance on Thursday, April 29, told the committee that the federal government spent N198.84 billion to fight terrorism from 2019 till date.
The Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, in the finance ministry, Aliyu Shinkafi, said all the funds appropriated for the war against insurgency had been released to the military authorities.
Shinkafi told the committee that N75billion was appropriated and released in 2019, adding that N7billion was released in 2019.
He also said N2.5billion was released in 2019 and tagged as ‘administration.’
The Permanent Secretary further told the senate that N75billion was appropriated in 2020 but that N74.99billion was released.
“In the current year, N100billion was appropriated and we have released N19.4billion for the first quarter.
“Just yesterday (Wednesday), we released N19.95billion for the second quarter” Shinkafi revealed.
The Senate Majority leader, Ali Ndume however, brought out a letter from the Chief of Defence Staff where he said the military authorities complained that they had shortfall of N50billion as far as releases from the Finance Ministry was concerned.
The majority leader expressed dissatisfaction with the non- appearance of the minister at the meeting.
Ndume asked the committee’s secretariat to summon her, alongside the Director General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze; and the Chief of Army Staff, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru for Tuesday with details of the releases made from 2019.
“Honestly, we are not happy that the Minister of Finance is not here today despite the fact that she was duly invited and she knew the importance of the issue we invited her to discuss with us.
“We were blaming the military but the soldiers are claiming that they have no equipment, arms and ammunition to work with because there was no money to buy them.
“We have invited the minister now to explain why her ministry was not funding the operations of the Army and she is not here. This is not acceptable” Ndume said.
