2023 budget: Proposed N871bn insufficient for police ― Minister

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3 years ago

Minister of Police Affairs, Alhaji Muhammadu Maigari Dingjyadi

The Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi on Tuesday disclosed that the proposed N871 billion in the 2023 budget estimates is inadequate for the Federal Ministry of Police Affairs and its Agencies towards ensuring adequate security of lives and property across the country.

The Minister made the observation during the joint budget defence held by the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Police, co-chaired by Senator Halliru Jika and Hon. Bello Kumo.

According to him, despite the outcry over the budgetary allocation in the 2022 Appropriation Act, there is no significant improvement in the 2023 budget estimates computed by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

While noting that the sums of N805 billion and N57 billion were proposed for Nigeria Police Force and Nigerian Police Trust Fund, respectively, the Minister however acknowledged that a paltry sum of N3 billion was given to the main Ministry and a sum of N5 billion to the Police Academy Wudil.

To this end, he urged the joint Committees to ensure an upward review of the budgetary allocation for the Ministry to carry out its statutory functions.

While giving an update on the 2022 budget performance, the Minister said out of the N1.7 billion released for capital expenditure, the funds were largely been utilized to carry out critical programmes while procurement processes for capital projects are still ongoing.

He said: “You’re aware of the mandate of the Ministry of Police Affairs. In order to achieve our mandate. Resources were provided for us in the 2022 budget for personnel overhead and capital expenditure.

“For purposes of implementation, actual releases in the main ministry for the 2022 budget as of date, N1.7 billion. Out of this the sum of N291 million has been released for Overhead and N1.4 billion for capital respectively.

“The released capital funds have largely been utilized to carry out critical programmes while procurement processes for capital projects are still ongoing.

“For the 2023 budget, the main ministry has a total budget of N3,553,590,805. For Nigerian Police Force is N805, 580,450,659; Police Academy, Wudil is N5,177,414,613; Nigerian Police Trust Fund is N57,14,287,532 and the total budget is N871,307,212,609.

“Despite the outcry of the 2022 budget, there’s no significant improvement in the 2023 budgetary provisions.

“It is therefore obvious from the foregoing that the Ministry to carry out its mandate of ensuring adequate security of lives and property in Nigeria.

“The provisions proposed for this task in the year 2023, particularly for the main Ministry and Police Academy, Wudil are considered inadequate.

“While we appreciate the innovation the parliament has taken to fund the police in the areas of the fueling of vehicles, and so on. We look up to at this point to intervene and improve the funding for the implementation of our mandate.”

To this end, Senator Jika and Hon. Kumo who commended the Minister on his efforts to achieve the Ministry’s mandate, resolved to executive session, noting that the security budget is not subjected to public scrutiny for security reasons.

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