Senate to Interior Ministry: Defend N700m collected for monitoring Ondo, Edo polls
…gives Ministry 24 hours to explain collection from SWV
By Tunde Opalana
The Senate yesterday ordered the Ministry of Interior to within 24 hours defend N700 million collected from Service Wide Votes (SWV) for the monitoring of Ondo and Edo Governorship elections.
From the record, the money was released in two batches, N400 million for Ondo governorship election and N300 million for Edo governorship Election.
According to the report, “N400 million was released to the Ministry of Interior for logistic and operational support in respect of forthcoming Ondo state gubernatorial election.”
The second release reads, “N300 million to the Ministry of Interior for logistic and operational support in respect of forthcoming Edo state gubernatorial election.”
The Chairman, Senate Public Accounts Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide gave the directive to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr S. Belgore due to excuse by the Ministry that the N700 million will be accounted for by the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps (NSDC).
According to the Permanent Secretary, “it is the NSDC that will account for the money, we only make request on behalf of the NSDC.”
Not satisfied with the defence of Permanent Secretary, the Chairman of the Committee said that the excuse is not tenable because the NSDC did not collect the money, it was the Ministry that collected the money.
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He added that the NSDC will only come before the Committee to account for the money requested personally from Service Wide Votes.
“NSDC has their own queries, they are coming before the Panel to respond to the one that bears their names, they have the money given to them directly.
“From our records, it is your ministry that will defend the expenditures not NSDC.”
The Chairman therefore gave the Ministry 24 hours to defend the N700 million for the Edo and Ondo governorship elections.
“You have 24 hours to make your report available to us, we must get explanation from you,” he submitted.
