Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi, Tuesday, has complained bitterly about drastic cut of the Ministry’s 2023 budget from the proposed N871 billion to a meagre N3 billion, even as the country heads into a general elections barely five months from now.
The minister, who appeared before a joint budget hearing of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Police co-chaired by Senator Halliru Jika and Hon. Bello Kumo, today, November 8, requested for more funding for his Ministry through budgetary allocation.
According to the minister, the proposal in 2023 budget was grossly inadequate to meet the mandate of the Ministry, explaining that out of the total budget of N871 billion earmarked for the Ministry and its agencies, only N3 billion was given in the approved envelope.
He said that the Nigerian police force, and Nigerian police trust fund got N805 billion and N57 billion respectively, even as he bemoaned the N5 billion allocated to Police Academy, Wudil, Kano State.
Speaking on 2022 budget performance, the Minister said that out of the N1.7 billion released, critical programmes had been carried out from the capital expenditures.
“You’re aware of the mandate of the ministry of police affairs. In order to achieve our mandate. Resources were provided for us in the 2022 budget for personnel overhead and capital expenditure. For purposes of implementation, actual releases in the main ministry for 2022 budget as at date, N1.7 billion. Out of this the sum of N291 million, has been released for overhead and N1.4 billion for capital respectively.
“The released capital funds have largely been utilized to carry out critical programs while procurement processes for capital projects are still ongoing. For 2023 budget, the main ministry has total budget of N3, 553,590,805. For Nigerian police force, is N805, 580,450,659, Police academy wudil is N5,177,414,613, Nigerian police trust fund is N57,14,287,532 and the total budget is N871,307,212,609. Despite the outcry of 2022 budget, there’s no significant improvement in the 2023 budgetary provisions.
“It is therefore obvious from the foregoing that the ministry to carry out its mandate of ensuring adequate security of lives and property in Nigeria. The provisions proposed for this task in the year 2023 particularly for the main ministry and police Academy, Wudil are considered inadequate. While we appreciate the innovation the parliament has taken to fund the police in the areas of fueling of vehicles, and so on. We look up to at this point to intervene and improve the funding for the implementation of our mandate.”
Journalists were later excused from the meeting as the Chairmen of the Committees, Jika and Kumo said details of security budget was not to be made public.
