Justify N700m Election Duty Fund, Senate Tells Ministry

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – The Senate on Wednesday gave the Ministry of Interior 24 hours to defend N700m collected from Service Wide Votes for the monitoring of Ondo and Edo governorship elections.

From the record, the money was released in two batches, N400m for the Ondo Governorship election and N300mn for Edo Governorship Election.

According to Authority to Incur Expenditure, N400m and N300m were released to the Ministry of Interior for “logistic and operational support for Ondo and Edo state governorship elections.”

In response to the questions, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Shuaib Belgore, told the senate that the N700m will be accounted for by the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps.

Belgore noted that it was the NSDC that could account for the money, “we only make requests on behalf of the NSDC,” he said.

The Chairman, Senate Public Accounts Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide, who obviously didn’t agree with the explanation said that the excuse was not tenable because the NSDC did not collect the money.

He added that the NSDC will only come before the committee to account for the money requested personally from Service Wide Votes.
Urhoghide said, “NSDC has their own queries, they are coming before the panel to respond to the one that bears their names and they have the money given to them directly.

From our records, it is your ministry that will defend the expenditures, not NSDC.”

The Chairman, therefore, gave the Ministry 24 hours to defend the N700m given to it for the Edo and Ondo governorship elections.

“You have 24 hours to make your report available to us, we must get an explanation from you,” he submitted