Senate recovers N300 billion from secret accounts

Taiwo Adisa, Abuja - 16.01.2008

The Senate said on Tuesday it had recovered N300 billion earlier kept in secret accounts by ministries and agencies. Senate spokesman, Senator Ayogu Eze, who made the disclosure, said the Senate was happy that the funds were now part of the 2008 budget.

Eze said the delay in passing the budget was advantageous to the country at the end of the day as the nation stands to gain a lot from a well-prepared budget.

“I need to state that finally, work in the system of the Senate and the National Assembly have paid off because some additional funds that were not originally captured in the budget, up to the tune of N300 billion or thereabout, have been raked in. Of course, you know the implication of what this would have been on the inflation regime if, after the appropriation, this kind of money found its way back into the fiscal system

“Our insistence has paid off. Some N300 billion in hitherto undisclosed accounts have been raked in. It would have distorted all the projections and then, the assumptions that we have made for the budget. That is why we insisted on doing the right thing, not for us, but for the benefit of our people.

“We are happy that a lot of Federal Government accounts that were hitherto not pried into by those who made budgets in the past have been brought to the attention of those who prepare the budget and we have been able to say, well, whatever is contained in any account, whether it is the sugar and rice levy account, whether it is the mining levy,” Ayogu said.

He said the passage of the budget was not the making of the Senate or the National Assembly, adding that the revenue profile of the nation had been coming into the National Assembly in bits and pieces.

“The delay in passing the budget is not essentially caused by the work of the Senate or the National Assembly. The delay has mainly been due to the inability of the executive to furnish the relevant committees with the financial position, the financial profile of government. This has been coming in bits and pieces; but finally, we are getting a fuller picture of the revenue profile,” he said.