N5trn Service Wide Votes: Senate probes 252 recipient agencies

By Adekunle Adesuji

Senate on Wednesday kicked start the Investigation of 252 government agencies that benefited from N5 trillion Service Wide Votes (SWV) between 2017 to 2021.

A Service Wide Vote (SWV) which is also known as the Consolidated Revenue Fund Charge is more or less the country’s contingency fund in the annual budget.

The decision of the Senate to investigate the Service Wide Votes (SWV) was a result of the discovery by the Senate that many agencies collected funds from SWV without notifying the National Assembly Panels that are mandated by law to oversight the agencies.

Addressing the newsmen, the Chairman of the Senate Public Account Committee, Senator Mathew Urhoghide said that the Investigation has to do with the disbursement of Service Wide Votes between 2017 to 2021 adding the Service Wide Votes has become a major component of the nation’s budget considering amount budgeted annually for it in the budget.

He said the Committee has to see how the money collected from Service Wide Votes is being expended because there is confusion on the approval of the Votes.

According to him, we want to see how this money is being expended there is confusion on approval, and we want to really get to know what is going on.

He added that any agency that fails to appear to the Committee will not hesitate to issue a warrant of arrest on the head of the agency because it has been discovered that many agencies collected this fund without informing the National Assembly Committee saddled with the responsibility to overnight the agency.

He said will not tolerate the absence of Galaxy Backbone, Ministry of Interior, Budget Office, State House, and NBET who are scheduled to appear before the committee.

He added that Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) collected N180 billion from the votes, NBET collected N2.9 billion, and the Ministry of Humanitarian received N445 billion from the Votes.

Among the 252 Ministries, Departments, and Agencies that are expected to appear in the ongoing Investigation of Service Wide Votes between 2017 till 2021 are the Ministry of Information and Culture, Defence, NHIS, Police, Ministry of Power, Bank of Industry, Water Resources, National Assembly, Public Complaint Commission (PCC), Directorate of State Service (DSS) and Presidential Amnesty Programme.