The National Assembly has moved to stop the mismanagement and abuse of the Service Wide Votes (SWV) by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAS)
The move, through a legislative framework, tagged, ‘Federal Audit Bill,’ seeks to compel ministers and heads of agencies to give account for monies collected under contingency budgets.
It will also prescribe 10year jail for erring officers if passed into law.
About N758 billion is proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari for service-wide votes in the 2021 budget while the total budget for the National Assembly and the Judiciary – the other two arms of government is N238 billion.
Service Wide Vote is an amount budgeted for unforeseen shortfalls or contingency that may arise in a budget year. This is released for shortfalls or to supplement recurrent or capital expenditure.
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These include a promotion, special events, elections if it falls within personnel or overhead. If there is a shortfall for a capital project under execution, it can be used to supplement.
Findings by the BusinessDay revealed that accountability has been a major issue over the years in the application of the SWV.
The auditor-general of the federation (AUGF) has also been shut out in the scheme of things as monies are released by the accountant-general of the federation (AGF) on the instruction of the minister of finance upon approval by the President.
Chairman of the Senate committee on a public account, Mathew Urhoghide, recently lamented that the administration of SWV was open to abuse because the National Assembly that has the power of appropriation is not aware of how monies are released and spent.
Speaking with BusinessDay, the senator representing Edo South on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the sharp practice predates the current administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He, however, said the country could no longer afford to filter the scarce resources through questionable manners the government officials have been handling the nation’s wealth.
He said: “This year what is earmarked for SWV is huge. Instead of keeping money in a basket for unforeseen, why can’t it come as supplementary budget?
“It will be proper if it is taken through an act of parliament for specific purposes and to evaluate the merit of the demands. A lot of agencies, including anti-corruption agencies, get a lot of money from the service-wide vote outside their regular appropriation depending on the merit of their cases at the discretion of the President.
“That may be a good intention by the President…..but the National Assembly is not involved before the money is released because the standing committee’s oversight the agencies – that are supposed to scrutinise the demands are shut out.
“This is because it is disbursed in the office of the AGF. When the agencies come for budget performance, most of them don’t disclose what they get from the service-wide vote. Unless the public account committees write the AGF, we are in the dark.”
Urhoghide said SWV was not supposed to be a bad idea but the administration was open to abuse.
“For 2021 alone it is N758 billion. The MDAS all have standing committees appropriating their budgets but they don’t know the amount and how the money is released.
