The House of Representatives on Tuesday queried the Federal Ministry of Information over the unlawful virement of budgetary capital of N254,124,455 for Covid-19 intervention programmes.
The Ministry appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of the House in the ongoing investigative hearing on COVID-19 intervention funds.
The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Information, Dr. Ngozi Onwudiwe, who appeared along with other staff, disclosed that the Ministry used N254,124,455 from their budgetary capital for COVID-19 intervention activities.
She said, “When Covid-19 happened in 2020, it occurred as a medical emergency. Just like the rest of the world, Nigeria was not prepared, and so there was no prior budget for COVID-19. The highest-level committee that was set up to drive the process of combating the epidemic directed MDAs in the short run to take some percentage of their capital for the fight against COVID-19.”
“The Ministry had to take N254,124,455 only, which was the percentage of capital for that year, to start the fight against COVID-19. Being an agency that’s more or less an advocacy agency cleaning the image of the country, driving awareness and enlightenment.”
According to her, most of the money was spent on radio jingles, newspaper advertisements, television advertisements, and all other forms of advertisements. Some of our agencies, including the National Orientation Agency, had to go door to door to talk to people about Covid-19. Sometimes they also accompanied the Ministry of Health in the process.
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“The placement of COVID-19 jingles was in selected radio stations across the 36 states, in Startimes and DSTV, and on selected television stations. The money used to combat the Covid-19 pandemic came from special intervention funds from the Presidential Task Force (PTF), with the total sum being N816,817,879 only.”
Reacting to the question raised by the Deputy Chairman, Hon. Umar Jeremiah, on who mandated the Ministry to use part of their capital for COVID-19, the Permanent Secretary said it was from the Committee constituted to fight the pandemic, and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation released the funds for the ministry.
Reacting to the allegation, the representative of the Accountant General, Mr. Ebute Elijah, said that the office of the Accountant General is in custody of the comprehensive list of the MDAs where funds were released for COVID-19.
“Having gone through the list and not seeing their name on it, I don’t know how they got the money,” he explained.
While ruling, the Committee directed the Ministry to submit the approval for the utilization of budgetary capital and procurement documents for all the money spent.