House Of Reps To Probe N90bn Special Intervention Funds Disbursement

The House of Representatives On Tuesday ordered investigation into the disbursement of over N90bn special intervention funds received by Federal government agencies from year 2015 to 2020 to ascertain that such funds were properly utilized.

The resolution followed a motion of urgent public importance brought before the House by Hon Henry Nwawuba, on the matter.

The lawmaker told the House that he was aware of some of the funds established by the federal government between 2015 and 2020 and the amounts released to the affected agencies.

Nwawuba said that the Federal Government was constrained to revert to external and internal borrowings to augment domestic savings, balance of payment deficits, and shortfalls in revenue.

He also noted that the Federal Government had also been borrowing quite substantially to fund projects and a range of public interventions.

The legislator enumerated the various funds in question to include, “N7,689,002,462 Special Intervention MDGs (2015), Contingency – N22,469,358,143, MDG Special Projects – N7,229,622,307, Special Intervention (2020) – N39,933,338,086, Special Intervention/Constituency Projects -N3,002,315,957, N15,868,060,896, Capital Contingency.”

He said he was further aware that other interventions included “National Water Rehabilitation Project, National Agriculture Technology Program, and Salary Bailout to States, payment for Fertilizer, State Water; Supply Project, State Agriculture Project, and FADAMA Project.”

He expressed concerns that despite the huge amount of funds invested, citizens continued to undergo untold hardship.

The lawmaker also raised the concern that despite the huge Ioans to boost the economy, Nigeria still slipped into its second recession in less than five years.

He added that those agencies in charge of disbursing some of the special funds were unable to give proper accounts of how the monies were utilized.

He further expressed worry that most of the funds were not captured in the Appropriation Act, thus the National Assembly was not aware of such budgetary allocations.

Nwawuba also said that the alleged fraudulent practices by agencies of government were sabotaging the efforts of the federal government and, “if left unchecked may lead to total collapse of the country’s economy.”

Consequent upon his submissions on the matter, the motion was overwhelmingly supported by the House, which resolved to set up an Ad-Hoc Committee to embark on the investigation.