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Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives committees on Regional Planning and Urban Development, yesterday, dismissed the 2019 budget estimates of the Urban and Regional Development Department of the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing as “copy and paste.”
The committee berated the Minister of State, Power, Works And Housing, Baba Mustapha Shehuri, and the Permanent Secretary, Muhammad Bukar, for allegedly copying the 2018 budget of the department.
The lawmakers, at a budget defence for the department, yesterday, also frowned at the non-inclusion of the details of over head expenditure of the department in the 2018 budget performance document presented to the committee.
Consequently, the committee demanded for the details, as well as details of staff who travelled for a certain African Union event and how much was spent per head.
It also demanded for details of staff who travelled to UN Habitat event and the amount spent on the trip.
A member of the committee, Ossai Nichola Ossai had queried non-inclusion of details of personnel spending, as well as how releases were made to department, in 2018 , in the budget review.
But, the permanent secretary, explained that that personnel cost of the department is not managed by the ministry. Besides, he said they could not include details of the personnel spending in their budget review because it was not specified.
Bukar craved the indulgence of the committee to ensnke him get the details across to the lawmakers before the end of yesterday.
Earlier, Shehuri, in the presentation of his 2018 budget appraisal, said “N128,353,065,392.00 was appropriated for the Housing sector of the ministry in the 2018 fiscal year.
“Out of this amount, the Urban and Regional Development Department received a total capital allocation of N1,229,535,392.”
The minister of state added that “N373,431,919.01, which represents 30.37 percent of N1,229,535,392 appropriated in the 2018 Appropriation Act, for the Urban and Regional Development Department was released. On the 2018 budget performance, the department received N373,431,919.01, which represents 30.37 percent of the appropriated amount.”
