The senate committee on environment has raised the alarm about N16 billion hidden in the 2022 budget estimates of the ministry of environment.
The chairman of the committee, Mr. Ike Ekweremadu, made the revelation during the presentation of his committee’s report before the senate committee on appropriation in Abuja yesterday.
He said the amount was included for servicing of debts believed to have been collected by state governments.
The senator said a similar discovery was made in the 2021 budget of the ministry for which it was queried by the committee, “only for it to be brought back in next year’s budget, this time to the tune of N16 billion.”
Ekweremadu said the loan was exclusively approved by a global institution for the state governments with a moratorium of 10 years and wondered why the ministry kept reflecting the facility in every budget cycle.
“Last year, as I said, there was N6 billion in the environment budget for the servicing of a multilateral loan regarding erosion control.
“Regrettably, about N1.5 billion of it was released to environment and later, the ministry of finance wrote, saying it was a mistake that was supposed to be from the service wide vote from where we service most of the loans.
“So, we took it in good faith but surprisingly we now got another N16 billion for the same reason from the ministry of environment and because there was a directive from the leadership of the national assembly that we should not tamper with monies provided for multilateral loan.
“But we decided to find out what it is all about. Eventually, we invited the ministry who now said by the time they got their envelope, the money they sent to ministries to distribute to agencies.
“There was no such amount; so by the time the money came to national assembly, there was this N16 billion for the servicing of the new multilateral loan.
“We asked when this money is due for servicing, they said it has a 10 year moratorium, we can’t be providing for it until 2023.
“We also found out that about 21 states are benefiting from it and it is these states that will pay the loan and not the Federal Government.
“So, it is either we wait until 2023 before making provisions for it or we ask the states to start making provisions for it if they have to pay now.
“Even if the Federal Government has to pay, it has to go through the service wide votes, not the respective budgets of the MDAs, it is wrong. The anomaly is untidy,” he told journalists.
However, he refused to mention the states that collected the loan adding that there was a “grand plot to defraud the federal government.”
He expressed confidence that the appropriation committee would get to the root of the matter and handle the case in the best interest of Nigerians.
