The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Sports, Hon. Godfrey Ali Gaiya, has told sports journalists in Abuja at the weekend that the National Sports Commission, the Nigeria Football Federation and the National Institute for Sports would on March 10 make a separate appearance before the two chambers of the National Assembly to defend the 2014 Annual budget.
Gaiya, who revealed this at the Police Sports Awards on Friday, said that the three sports bodies have already been communicated as regards this meeting so that they would have enough time to prepare for the parley.
He said: “We have pegged the date for the National Sports Commission and Nigeria Football Federation and other parastatals under the sports ministry to appear before us to defend their annual allocation for 2014.
“We have already invited them to appear on Monday March 10.
“The defence is going to be open for the media to cover it and the floor will be open for questions and clarifications.
“What will be the highpoint of the defence will be the reduction in the allocation.
“We cannot understand why there will be slash in the allocation in a very loaded year for sports competitions.
“We have the Commonwealth, FIFA World Cup, U-17 female World Cup and other sporting activities that require much money, yet the allocation is very low compared to last year.
“We will passionately look at the envelope and see the possibility of tampering with the envelope if need be.
“Don’t forget that the envelop is a proposal from the executive.
“They know their programmes, but we will open the envelope and ask them the desirability of the required funds and if we find out that they don’t need what they required, we will slash and channel to other areas much more in need of the fund.
“We want to ensure that funding will not stop them from bringing success to Nigeria.”
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