Sadiya Farouq refutes claims of N206bn padding into ministry’s budget

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, disaster management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq has dismissed allegations of the padding of her Ministry’s budget with the insertion of N206 billion into the 2023 appropriation bill.

Mrs Farouq cleared the air when she appeared before the Senate Committee on Special Duties on Thursday at the National Assembly.

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She had earlier appeared before the house of representatives committee where she told them that the ammount added was for the National Social Safety Nets Project – Scale Up but blamed wrong coding for the confusion.

She said “When we saw it last week, we didn’t understand what it was meant for because the the explanation was not clear, if you have put in 206 billion naira in Ministry of humanitarian Affairs and the narration is ‘purchase of military equipments security equipments, then definitely something is wrong and that was why I said I was not going to say anything until we get clarification from the Ministry of Finance.

Speaking on the issue, Chairman Senate Committee on special duties, Yusuf Yusuf said ‘the minister said she had no explanation and she wanted to do justice to the matter by asking the Minister of Finance to explain.

He noted that if the matter was dragged into the public domain, this will not help the country.

Trouble started when a member of the Committee, Senator Elisha Abbo, APC, Adamawa North asked the Minister about the N206 billion in the budget budget.

Nasir Gwarzo, Permanent Secretary, Humanitarian Affairs said it was a budget session that brought up the issue and the committee needed clarification on the N206bn additional funds in the ministry’s budget.

He added that the clarification was not to find faults neither was it to indict anyone.