House Probes Disbursement of N96.19bn SIF to MDAs

By Adedayo Akinwale

The House of Representatives has ordered the investigation into the disbursement of the sum of N96,191,697,851 Special Interventions Funds (SIF) received by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) between 2015 and 2020.

Moving the motion at plenary on Tuesday, Hon. Henry Nwawuba expressed concern that those agencies in charge of disbursing some of the special funds are unable to give proper accounts of how the monies were utilised.

The House, therefore, directed its Committee on Finance to investigate the disbursement of funds received by agencies of the federal government from 2015 to 2020 with a view to ensuring that such funds were properly utilised.

Giving the breakdown, the lawmaker noted that the federal government between 2015 and 2020 released Special Intervention MDGs (2015) – N7,689,002,462; Contingency – N22,469,358,143; MDG Special Projects – N7,229,622,307; Special Intervention (2020) – N39,933,338,086; Special Intervention/Constituency Projects -N3,002,315,957 and Capital Contingency – N15,868,060,896.

Nwawuba said: “Alleged fraudulent practices by agencies of government are sabotaging the efforts of the federal government and, if left unchecked may lead to total collapse of the country’s economy.”

He added that despite the huge amount of funds invested, citizens continue to undergo untold hardship.

The lawmaker stressed that most of the funds were not captured in the appropriation processes, thus the National Assembly was not made aware of such monetary allocations.

Nwawuba noted that despite the huge Ioans to boost the economy, Nigeria still slipped into its second recession in less than five years.

He said the federal government was constrained to revert to external and internal borrowings to augment domestic savings, balance of payment deficits, and shortfalls in revenue.

Nwawuba added that other interventions include: National Water Rehabilitation Project, National Agriculture Technology Programme, and Salary Bailout to States, payment for fertilizer, State Water; Supply Project, State Agriculture Project, and FADAMA Projects.