Senate uncovers N10bn hidden in education budget

Abuja – The senate has uncovered N9 982 258
479 hidden in the budget of parastatals by the
Federal Ministry of Education.
The committee, which discovered the amount at
the commencement of its 2016 budget defence,
said the amount was hidden in the ministry’s
parastatals.
The parastatals allocation for the year,
according to the Senate Committee, increased
at geometric progression by almost N10 billion
while the entire personnel cost for the ministry
and all its subsidiaries including schools and
colleges declined drastically when compared to
that of last year.
To this end, the committee chairman, Senator
Aliyu Wamakko, ruled that the permanent
secretary and the ministry should go back to
the drawing board and come up with a more
sensible overhead cost, saying its discovery was
that the huge sum was deliberately hidden
under parastatals’ personnel cost.
The ministry’s parastatals’ personnel cost rose
from N88.1 billion in 2015 to as high as N98.1
billion in 2016 estimate proposals while the
personnel budget of universities reduced by as
much as N16.245 billion, declining from N227.2
billion in 2015 to N211.0 billion in 2016.
Similarly, colleges of education budget
decreased from N40.2 billion in 2015 to N37.6
billion, while polytechnics’ personnel cost which
previously stood at N61.44 billion in 2015 was
trimmed to N58.23 billion just as unity colleges’
budget had been cut from N288.7billion to
N7.588 billion.

– News 24