Elumoye and Juliet Akoje in Abuja
The Senate yesterday turned down the report of its Committee on Drugs and Narcotics after it uncovered the document contained N4.5 billion meant for the construction of police barracks in the 2022 budget estimate for National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Speaking while presenting the report, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Drugs and Narcotic, Senator Hezekiah Dimka said his Committee uncovered the anomaly in the course of scrutinizing the budget document presented to it by the Ministry of Finance and quickly raised the alarm.
It was on the basis of this that the Committee on Appropriation chaired by Senator Barau Jubrin, turned down the report on the budget for NDLEA and asked the Committee to go and correct the padded N4.5billion.
The N4.5 billion padding in the budget for NDLEA was coming a day after the Senate Committee on Environment chaired by Senator Ike Ekweremadu uncovered a whopping N16 proposed in the 2022 Appropriation Bill for the repayment of the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP.
Making his own presentation, Chairman of Senate Committee on Sports and Youth Development, Senator Obinna Ogba called for greater investments by government in sports infrastructure.
In the area of youth development, the ranking Senator made a passionate appeal to the Federal Government to augment the daily feeding allowance of members of the National Youth Service Corps(NYSC).
According to him, the arrangement where government spend N1,000 as feeding fee on a prisoner a day and N600 on a corps member is not good enough and should be reviewed.
On the fate of Super Eagles Coach, Gernot Rohr, Ogba disclosed that himself and a few others on the Board of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) are disposed to the idea of relieving the German of his job following his strings of poor performances.
He said in doing so, proper care must be taken to ensure Nigeria does not violate any of the rules of the world football body FIFA which could come with dire consequences for the country’s football.
He therefore, called for understanding on the part of the Nigerian people.
Responding, two members of the Committee on Appropriation, Senators Smart Adeyemi and Stella Odua, called on the federal government to do more for sports and see it as a veritable tool to boost the economy.
