The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has accused the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF) of smuggling N206 billion into the 2023 budget of Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.
A statement by the ministry said Mrs. Ahmed pointed fingers at the BOF when she appeared before House Committee on Appropriation’s interactive meeting. The minister told the legislators that “there was an error in the budget of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs as the N206 billion captured in the budget proposal of the ministry was wrongly coded by the Budget Office”.
“Mrs. Ahmed said the N206 billion alleged insertion, which had generated serious reaction within the week, was for the national social safety nets project funded by the World Bank and domiciled in the Humanitarian Ministry,” the statement said.
The Finance Minister told the legislators that “the wrong coding resulted in the item being wrongly captured as ‘purchase of security equipment’ but that it had nothing to do with Budget padding, but an oversight”.
She added: “The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management should have called the attention of the Budget Office to the anomaly, like her counterparts in other ministries.”