Non-inclusion of N111m IGR in 2016 budget: Senate probes NPHCDA

For not including over N111 million in the 2016 budget documents it presented before it, the Senate Committee on Primary Healthcare and Communicable Diseases, has queried the Executive Secretary of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Fasail Shuaib.

The agency however explained to the committee that the amount was remitted fully into the Consolidated Revenue Account through the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, as required by the country’s extant law.

The committee, which was saddened that the agency deliberately excluded the amount being its 2016 internally generated revenue from the previous year’s budget, demanded full information on the whereabouts of the money.

The directive was given during the committee’s budget defence session with the agency, in Abuja.

Chairman of the committee and senator representing Abia North, Mao Ohuabunwu, PDP, Abia North, who chaired the session, directed that all necessary bank transaction involving the money be immediately sent to the committee.

Besides, Ohuabunwa directed that details of all the contracts awarded in the 2016 budget by the agency which had either been executed or still ongoing be sent to the committee, a development, he said was the prerequisite for the consideration of the agency’s 2017 budget.

Although, Shuaib told the committee that the generated amount was remitted to the consolidated revenue account, Chairman of the committee, Mao Ohuabunwu argued that the agency erred, given that the law requires that only 25 percent of such generated revenue can be sent to the account.

Besides, Ohuabunwa who observed that the action of the agency in not capturing the money in its 2016 budget document was a grave offence, insisted that bank documents of transfer of the money besides the relevant section of the law that the agency cited for its action be forwarded appropriately to it.

“As a committee, we want to see the bank document on the transfer of the money. In any case, it is an offence that the amount so generated and the transfer to the consolidated revenue account as claimed here was not captured in the 2016 budget documents of the agency submitted to us.

“I doubt if there’s any law like that requiring agencies to transfer the whole of their internally generated revenue to the consolidated revenue. I think the law says 25 percent, “he said.

Also, Senator Ohuabunwa directed the agency to furnish his committee with details of all the contracts awarded in the previous year.

According to him, the agency would provide details of all the contracts it awarded in the previous year, the contract executed, those ongoing, the various amounts they were awarded and how much was expended.

He warned that failure of the agency to provide the required details may stall the consideration of its 2017 budget.