Members of Senate Committee on the Capital Market on Thursday were angry with the Security Exchange Commission over N9 billion expenditure in 2014 without the approval of the National Assembly.
The Commission had appeared before the Committee to defend its 2014 budget and present 2015 budget proposal for scrutiny.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ayo Adeseun, queried the Acting Director General of the Commission, Munir Gwarzo, for spending N9 billion without the approval of the National Assembly.
This was as a result of the embargo from the parliament not to appropriate any budget for SEC in 2014.
The Chairman said: “The House just concurred on what transpired in the House of Reps.
“You will have to go to the House and get them to rescind their decision.
“The two chambers make up the parliament and if one concurs, the other does not, then your budget will be invalid.
“You are under obligation to bring your budget to the National Assembly for approval.
“If your Board approved, that is not the end of the story.
“After your Board approval, whatever comes from the Board is still a proposal.
“But that didn’t happen for 2014.”
Another member of the Committee, Senator Magnus Abe, asked the Commission why it spent the resource that belongs to Nigerians without an approval by the parliament.
Abe: “If the National Assembly took a decision not to approve a budget, then the National Assembly had a reason for taking that decision and that decision was expected to have some consequences.
“And the purpose of creating those consequences was to force a resolution of those issues.
“But if a federal agency can go ahead, ignore the National Assembly, spend funds belonging to the people of this country and say we sit down here and say it doesn’t matter, so what if we look forward and they say it doesn’t matter and ignore the one we are approving for them this year?
“This kind of behaviour reflects in everything that the Commission does.”
But Gwarzo explained that the commission complied with all the laws that governs the operations in the capital market.
He said: “With respect to the spending of 2014, we stand to be corrected and we stand to be guided.
“We had interaction with the House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Compliance.
“And they gave us the go-ahead to spend money on keys issues because they recognised the fact that if SEC does not have a kobo and spend a kobo, it means that the entire capital market will be closed down and by extension the economy will also be closed down.
“And it was based on their guidance that we restricted our spending to personnel and overhead.
“And that is why we didn’t do anything on capital expenditure.”
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