The Senate on Thursday discovered the padding of another N398 million into the 2016 Budget of the Ministry of Information and Culture.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, Ima Niboro, on the spot disowned the figure, saying only N5 million was budgeted for computer purchase for the Nigeria Film and Video Censors Board.
The revelation came to the fore when the Senate Committee on Information demanded to know why the budget for the purchase of computers was huge for NAN and NFVCB.
While N230 million was budgeted for NAN for the purchase of computer, N168 million was voted for the same purpose for NFVCB.
Mohammed instantly responded: “No, that is not possible.
“That was definitely not what was proposed.
“This cannot be.”
An official of the Ministry was also quick to point out that N5 million was what was proposed for the item in the original budget of the NFVCB.
Responding the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, said: “The difference between N5 million and N168 million is huge.”
Niboro also expressed surprise about the N230 million for the purchase of the same item as captured under “Capital Votes” in the 2016 budget of NAN.
There were other ministries budget that had been discovered padded in the budget defence process.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, disowned the budget that was with the Senate when he came for budget defence.
Adewole said he was going to present a fresh one as several figures had been smuggled in.
He said: “We have to look into the details of the budget and re-submit it to the committee.
“This was not what we submitted.
“We’ll submit another one.
“We don’t want anything foreign to creep into that budget.
“What we submitted is not there.”
Another N10 billion was discovered to have been smuggled into the budget of the Ministry of Education.
The explanation later offered was that it was a typographical error.
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