The National Assembly
Joint Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has raised
concerns about the additional budgetary spending of over N503 million by INEC
without applying for virement from the National Assembly.
The discovery was made
during the 2019/2020 budget defence session by the commission before the
committee. Rep. Ibrahim Babangida from Katsina raised the issue when he asked
the INEC Chairman Yakubu Mohmud to explain why the commission unilaterally
chose the budgetary item to effect extra-budgetary spending.
Babangida said that
the action of the commission was in contravention of the 1999 Constitution that
stipulates that funds should not be expended outside what has been appropriated
by the National Assembly.
Rep. Fred Agbedi,
representing Bayelsa, also asked the INEC chairman to tell the committee the
extant laws the commission relied on to spend money beyond appropriation.
He said that in spite
of the emergency necessitating the commission to spend fund beyond appropriation,
such extra-budgetary spending should be done with a request for virement and
approval by the National Assembly.
Some of the areas
where such extra-budgetary expenditure was observed by the committee are
security services in which N150 million was appropriated but the sum of N194.8
million was spent by the commission.
Also, N100 million was
budgeted for office rent by National Assembly for the commission but the
commission spent N232.1nmillion, just as it spent N440.8 million for general
services, whereas the National Assembly budgeted N342,000,000, among other such
extra budget spending.
In his defence, the
INEC chairman Prof Yakub Mahmud said that the spending was based on emergency
situations and in line with the independence of the commission to carry out its
responsibilities.
Speaking on the
personnel of the commission, the INEC chairman said that the commission had yet
to enrol its staff on the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System
(IPPIS).
He explained that it
was still waiting for circular to guide them on how it should be implemented in
the commission.
Earlier in his
remarks, the chairman of the committee, Sen. Kabiru Gaya, (APC Kano), asked the
commission to always comply with a request from lawmakers to submit their
budget details, saying that the committee had requested the commission to
immediately commence the deregistration of political parties that failed to
meet up with the constitutional requirements of winning the election.
Gaya called for the
submission of the list of the parties that failed to meet the constitutional
provision of continuous existence as a political party. He also commended the commission for saving
money for the Federal Government by combining the Kogi and Bayelsa elections on
Nov. 16.