By Alex Enumah in Abuja
The Minister of Justice on Wednesday maintained that it has zero allocation for alleged constituency or zonal intervention projects in the 2019 approved budget.
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry and Solicitor General of the Federation (SGF), Dayo Apata (SAN), made the clarification in a statement issued to newsmen by Dr Umar Gwandu, the media aide to the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami.
The clarification, which was contained in a letter dated December 3, 2019 and addressed to the Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC), according to the SGF is necessary to correct media reports about the ministry on the issue, which he said “is erroneous and misleading vituperation of vilification”.
Referring to the letter, the statement said: “The attention of the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has been drawn to a publication in a national daily on Monday, December 2, 2019 wherein the Federal Ministry of Justice was alleged to have inserted the sum of N2.7 billion in its 2019 Appropriation for Community Projects.
“The report, according to the letter, prompted the reaction and rebuttal of the said misleading publication and to as well avail you the authentic data at our disposal which is in harmony with the 2019 Appropriation by the National Assembly for the Ministry.”
The permanent secretary said for the avoidance of doubt, it was of paramount importance to state categorically that the Federal Ministry of Justice has no constituency project in its budgets as a ministry.
However, he said after thorough investigation on the matter, the ministry came to realise that two agencies under its supervision — the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Person (NAPTIP) and National Drug Law Enforcement Agencies (NDLEA) — have provisions for constituency projects due to their statutory functions.
“While NAPTIP was allocated N110 million, NDLEA has N766.46 million which amount to N2.1 billion as against the N2.7 billion as mischievously exaggerated by the media.
“It needs to be reinstated for emphasis that the Federal Ministry of Justice, in its own right, has no allocation for constituency projects in its 2019 budget.
“The budgets of statutory parastatals under its supervision in that respect was unduly overblown,” he said.
Apata further said it is imperative to state that the stated amount is not contained in the 2019 budget of the Ministry of Justice and the attention of the ministry was never aware of such allocation.
“The intendment of the letter is to substantially establish that the sum mentioned in the aforesaid publication is at variance with the statutory allocation of the ministry in the 2019 budget.
“Unfortunately upon the said publication, this office was inundated with series of enquires, questions and news reporters requesting for clarification. It would have been more appropriate if your good office had first sought for our clarification on the issue before going to the press,” the permanent secretary had written to the ICPC.
