The Senate will today (Tuesday) deliberate on the N53.6 billion that
has been earmarked for the security agencies to prosecute the February
2019 general elections.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, will at plenary this morning
present the report of the committee for the larger house to debate and
possibly approve the budget estimate.
The Senate had last
Thursday approved N189.207 billion election budget for the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), ahead of the February 2019 polls
with a proviso that that the amount should be vired from the Special
Intervention Programme as captured in the Service Wide Votes of the 2018
Appropriation Act.
Also last Thursday, the National Assembly ‘s
Joint Committee had met with heads of affected security agencies with a
view to approving the N53.6 billion election budget proposal they
presented to the National Assembly .
The committee headed by
Senator Goje had directed the heads of security agencies present to hold
Executive Sessions with Chairmen of Committees on Security and
Intelligence, Police and Interior.
The security chiefs thereafter
met with Chairman of Committee on Interior, Senator Andy Uba; Security
and Intelligence, Shaba Lafiagi and that of Police, Senator Abu Ibrahim,
in their respective offices at the Senate Building.
The
committee as at yesterday afternoon was still meeting with a view to
fine tuning the election budget proposals of the security agencies
before presenting it at plenary today.
The breakdown of the N53.6
billion election budget for security agencies include N4.28 billion for
the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA); Department of State
Services (DSS) N12.25 billion; Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps
N3.57billion; Nigeria Police Force N30.54billion and Nigeria
Immigration Service N2.62billion.
