Senate Committee Summons Finance Minister Over Military Funding

The Senate committee on Army on Thursday summoned the Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, to give account of releases to the military for operation Lafiya Dole and the war on terrorism.

The committee issued the summons after the Minister was absent at a meeting called by the committee.

The Permanent Secretary of the ministry of Finance Aliyu Shinkafi represented the Minister but the committee was dissatisfied and insisted that the minister must appear before them. 

The Permanent Secretary however told the committee that N75 billion was appropriated and released in 2019 while additional funds appropriated from the service wide votes was also released 100 percent. 

The sum of 2.5 billion was also released. 

He added that In 2020, N75 billion was appropriated but N74.99 billion was released. 

In 2021, N100 billion has been appropriated and N19.4 billion released for the first quarter.

Just yesterday, he said, the ministry released N19.95 billion for the second quarter. 

However, Senator Ali Ndume, Committee Chairman, presented a letter from the Chief of Defence staff where he stated that military authorities complained of a shortfall in releases from the Finance ministry.