Leke Baiyewu , Abuja

The Senate Committee on Culture and Tourism on Tuesday questioned the Minister of Information , Culture and Tourism , Alhaji Lai Mohammed , over what they described as an annual ritual of reintroducing items for which appropriations had been made in the previous year .

Such items, according to the committee, include office equipment such as computer , furniture, generators and vehicles .

The Chairman of the committee, Fatima Raji- Rasaki , drilled Mohammed while the latter appeared before the panel to defend the budgetary estimates in the 2018 budget proposal by the ministry .

She said , “Under the capital project in 2017 , there is office equipment , computers , generators and so on, and some of them are still listed under your 2018 budget . Is it every year that you will be purchasing furniture? What happened to the previous furniture?”

The Permanent Secretary , Ministry of Information , Culture and Tourism, Dr . Musbau Kayode , who was the first to respond , said , “The fund that was released were not enough this year . That is why we decided to make provisions for them in this budget . We intended to purchase two vehicles this year but we could not because of non- release of funds. ”

Raji- Rasaki , however, stated that the National Assembly frowned on re – inserting items for which funds had been appropriated for in subsequent budgets of ministries , departments and agencies .

She said , “Bringing office equipment like computers every year – making it a yearly event – seems as if it is not going down well with the National Assembly. We have found them in the previous years – maintenance of furniture, buying of furniture. ”

Responding, Mohammed said only 23 per cent of the capital vote of the ministry had been released by the Federal Government .

He said , “Ma , if you look at what was appropriated and what was released , especially in the area of capital , it is always about 22 to 23 per cent , which means that if we needed to buy two vehicles and the release could only buy one, we needed to seek relief in the next budget .

That is why it seems as if it is a ritual . It is simply because we never get full release of either the capital appropriated or the overheads appropriated . We never get 100 per cent and this always affect the personnel cost . ”

Rasaki also pointed out the N 561 m overheads of the ministry in 2016 , saying , “You spent everything leaving the balance of just N 3 m . ”

In his response , the minister said , “ That is for overheads . And even the overheads, that (what was released) is 23 per cent of the overheads , ma . It is not as if we were given 100 per cent . ”

Punchng

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