House Approves Sourcing Virement from MDAs

Shola Oyeyipo in Abuja

The House of Representatives has approved that the N242,245,050,100 supplementary budget approved for the execution of the 2019 election through virement sourced from 30 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the Service Wide Votes (SWVs).

The federal government had kicked against the lawmakers’ refusal to comply with the request of President Muhammadu Buhari who asked the National Assembly to provide the virement from the N557 billion inserted into the budget by the federal lawmakers for their constituency projects.

This came following the consideration of a motion by the Chairman, Appropriations’ Committee, calling on the House to rescind the earlier approval of the virement Budget for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies for the conduct of the 2019 general elections and that the execution of the 2019 election should be through virement from 30 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and Service Wide Votes.

The Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, who chaired the Committee of Supply and who was assisted by the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Yusuf Lasun said the deduction on MDAs was evenly so as not to impose burden on them.
He said it was Joint Appropriations Committee decision to make the virement 29 percent across board for all the affected MDAs.

The virement amounted to N121b which represents 50 percent of the budget while the balance was sourced from Service Wide Votes.

With this arrangement, N121,122,525,050, which represents 50 per cent of the amount was sourced from Service Wide Vote while the remaining half is to be taken from the N557 billion special intervention programme fund which would leave N378,877,474,950.