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Senate probes 252 beneficiary agencies in N5trn Service Wide Votes
Senate on Wednesday resolved to carry out investigation on the 252 government ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs that benefited from the N5trillion Service Wide Votes, SWV from 2017 to 2021.
The decision followed the discovery that many agencies collected funds from the SWV without notifying the National Assembly panels that are mandated by law to oversight the agencies .
SWV which is also known as the Consolidated Revenue Fund Charge, is more or less the country’s contingency fund in the annual budget.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Senator Mathew Urhoghide (PDP Edo South), explained that the investigation has to do with disbursement of SWV between 2017 and 2021, adding the votes has become major component of nation’s budget considering amount budgeted annually for it in the proposals.
Senator Urhoghide said the committee wanted to know how the money collected from Service Wide Votes is being expended, alleging confusion in the approval of the votes
“We want to see how this money is being expended. There are confusion on approval, we want to really get to know what is going on,” he stressed.
He warned that the committee will not hesitate to issue warrant of arrest on the head of the any agency who fails to appear before it, “because it has been discovered that many agencies collected this fund without informing the National Assembly committee saddled with responsibility to overnight them.”
According to him, the committee will not tolerate the absence of Galaxy Backbone, Ministry of Interior, Budget Office, State House, NBET who are scheduled to appear before the committee.
He added that Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs collected N180billion from the votes, NBET collected N2.9billion and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs received N445 billion from the Votes .
Among the 252 ministries, departments and agencies that are expected to appear in the ongoing investigation of Service Wide Votes from 2017 to 2021 are Ministry of Information and Culture, Defence, NHIS, Police, Ministry of Power, Bank of Industry, Water Resources, National Assembly, Public Complaints Commission, Department of State Services and the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
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