The Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, has asked the House of Representatives to grant him the power to arbitrarily spend funds under the controversial “security vote” scheme.
Wike, while appearing before the House Committee on FCT on Monday to defend the N1.1 trillion budget of his ministry, said he needs the security vote to tackle the insecurity currently ravaging the Nigerian capital.
The security vote is a controversial and corruption-ridden scheme often used by state governors to spend money arbitrarily without any form of transparency. Anti-corruption advocates have long argued that the security vote has become a conduit for siphoning funds.
“As governor, my director of SSS can meet me and say, ‘We need to carry out an operation this night’. We need N30 million to carry out that operation. I don’t need to meet the accountant, all I need to say is ‘go and take money there,” Wike told the lawmakers.
Wike also asked the House of Representatives to approve a N500 billion loan to finance the N1.147 trillion 2024 budget of the territory.
Wike appeared before the House Committee on FCT on Monday to defend his budget.
In his speech, the former Rivers State governor is proposing to borrow N500 billion from commercial banks to finance capital projects.
During the defence, a lawmaker from Niger State, Saidu Abdulahi, raised concern over the planned borrowing, stating that the proposed N500 billion loan would cost more from commercial banks.
The lawmaker urged the minister to explore other options, like the capital market.
Speaking on raising the revenue profile of the FCT, the minister promised to improve the land allocation system through the new certificate of occupancy.
Speaking on the land allocation system, the minister alleged that some civil servants are conniving with some unscrupulous elements to defraud the government.
The breakdown of the budget showed that capital expenditure will gulp N726 billion, while N280 billion is for overhead and N140 billion goes for personnel costs.