The senate committee on army yesterday issued summons to the minister of finance, budget and national planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, the chief of army staff, Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru and the director general, budget office, Mr. Ben Akabueze to appear before it on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 with details of how N198.84 billion was spent to fund military operations from 2019 to date.
The ministry had during interaction with the lawmakers told the committee that the federal government spent that sum on the anti-terrorism fight since 2019.
The permanent secretary, special duties in the ministry, Mr. Aliyu Shinkafi, who appeared before the committee, had stated that all the funds appropriated for the war against insurgency had been released to the military authorities.
He said N75 billion was appropriated and released in 2019 while another N7 billion was released the same year.
Shinkafi also said N2.5 billion was released in 2019 and tagged as ‘administration.’
He further said that N75billion was appropriated in 2020 but that N74.99 billion was released.
“In the current year, N100 billion was appropriated and we have released N19.4 billion for the first quarter.
“Just yesterday (Wednesday), we released N19.95billion for the second quarter,” he added.
However, chairman of the committee, Mr. Ali Ndume produced a letter from the chief of defence staff in which the authorities complained that they had shortfall of N50 billion as far as releases from the finance ministry was concerned.
Ndume expressed dissatisfaction with the non appearance of the Minister at the meeting.
Consequently, he asked the committee’s secretariat to summon Ahmed, alongside Akabueze and Attahiru.
He took exception to the non-appearance of the minister despite the fact that she was duly invited.
“We were blaming the military but the soldiers are claiming that they have no equipment, arms and ammunition to work with because there was no money to buy them,” he added.
He said Ahmed was invited to explain why her ministry was not funding the operations of the army as well as provide details of budget releases to the army since 2019.
