Budget Defence: COREN Council Member Explains Inability to Remit Funds to Federation Account

Sunday Aborisade, in Abuja

The Senate Committee on Works has said there was no going back on its decision to remove the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) from the 2023 budget.

This was just as a Council member explained to THISDAY on conditions of anonymity, reasons COREN had not been able to remit any money to the Federation Account since the exit of the immediate past Registrar from office on March 15th, 2022.

The Senate Committee on Works chaired by Senator Adamu Aleiro, had vowed to give the professional body a zero allocation in the 2023 fiscal year.

Trouble started when the Registrar of COREN, Ademola Bello was asked to defend the 2022 budget allocation was utilised as well as the achievements of COREN in the year under review.

Bello explained that COREN was given the sum of N2.4 billion for the 2022 fiscal year, adding that it spent a whooping sum of N1.2 billion to organise annual conference.

He also told the committee members that the personnel cost in the 2023 budget was increased by N200 million because COREN was planning to have its offices in 36 states of the federation in 2023.

When he was asked by Aliero how much COREN remitted to the federation account, Bello said it was N45 million.

The lawmakers were not happy about the poor remittance and the COREN officials were later directed to produce evidence of remittance to the federation accounts among others.

A member of the committee, Senator George Sekibo said there was no justification to continue to place COREN under the federal budget as it could stand alone as a professional body like Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), as well as other professional bodies.

He said, “How can COREN spend about N1.2 billion on annual conference and remit just N45 million into the federation accounts? Government is in need of money to provide infrastructure to Nigerians.

“COREN should be made to stand as a professional body and stay out of money from the government.”

The chairman of the Committee, therefore, suspended further consideration of COREN’s budget and directed its Registrar to provide evidence of remittance to the federation accounts.

Meanwhile, a Council member who spoke on conditions of anonymity alleged that, “some past and present leadership of the organisation travelled to Glasgow in July 2022 for a conference which gulped a huge sums of money.

“No remittance has been made to the Federation Account since the immediate past Registrar left office on 15th of March 2022.

“No remittance has been made to Federation Account since Engr Prof Joseph Odigure left office on the 15 of March 2022.

“The new Registrar has no control and does not have any evidence of remittance to the Federation Account because COREN has not remitted any money,” the source alleged.

When contacted for the latest on the issue yesterday,  the Chairman of the Senate panel said there was no going back on the decision taken by the committee.

He said, “We are expecting them (COREN) officials to come back with some documents but we’ve made up our minds that they would no longer get allocation from the federation Account again “