House Committee: N595bn Allocated to  Intelligence Sub-sector in 2025 Budget Inadequate

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja 

The House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence has said that the total allocation of N595,024,943,368 to the sub-sector in teh 2025 appropriation bill is inadequate.

The committee’s Chairman, Hon. Ahmed Satomi, made this known on Monday in Abuja at the budget defence meeting with the agencies under the committee’s oversight jurisdiction. 

He stressed that in the 2025 budget, defence and security sector was allocated N4.91 trillion, thus underscoring the priority accorded to security in the 2025 Budget.

Satomi said: “For this laudable allocation, may I however note that the intelligence sub sector appears to be grossly underfunded going by the total allocation of N595,024,943,368 to the subsector.

“Out of which proposed capital expenditure allocation is N274,550,298,453.00, overhead allocation is N107,963,187,783, while allocation to personnel expenditure for the entire intelligence sector is N 212,511,457,132 billion.”

The chairman pointed out that it was therefore not encouraging to observe that the frontline agencies saddled with statutory responsibilities of countering violent extremism, terrorism, illicit flow of small arms and light weapons, intelligence gathering and analysis, maintenance of national security and ensuring the provision of safe, secure and efficient air transportation for the president, vice-president and other notable government officials are negligibly funded. 

According to him, “Going by the submissions before the committee, it is heartbreaking that an agency like the National Centre for Counter Terrorism has not gotten any capital release for year 2023 and year 2024. 

“The National Institute for Security Studies (NISS) and the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSSALW) are yet to receive a single kobo for their capital projects in 2024.

“The Capital releases to the DSS and NIA are insufficient to motivate these agencies to work optimally in order to deliver on their critical mandates.”

Satomi, therefore, called on President Bola Tinubu to intervene for an increase in the allocations to the agencies in the intelligence sector and also direct the Minister of Finance to, as a matter of national security, prioritize the full release of all outstanding 2024 budget allocations to the intelligence agencies and sustain the practice of prompt releases to them going forward. 

Speaking , the Permanent Secretary, Special Services Office, Mohammed Danjuma, lamented that the envelope system of budgeting provides a lot of constraints in terms of resources allocation to the community. 

He said despite this challenge, the agencies try to strike a balance between their operational needs and the government’s fiscal constraints.