The Senate at its plenary session of Thursday, 11 October 2018, approved the 2019 Election Budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) following consideration and adoption of the report on the Committee on Appropriations.
Presenting the report of the committee, the Chairman Sen. Danjuma Goje (APC: Gombe) informed the Senate that the Committee had met and considered the request of President Muhammadu Buhari in a letter dated 11th July seeking Senate’s approval for the virement of the sum of N242, 445,322,600.00 in the 2018 Appropriation Act for the conduct of the 2019 General Elections although the letter did not specifically state the provisions from which the virement would be sourced from.
Sen. Goje explained that the said election budget sum requested by President Muhammadu Buhari covered the operations of INEC; the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA); the Department of State Services (DSS); the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC); the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) and the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) in the 2019 General Elections.
Speaking on the 2019 Election Budget for INEC, Sen. Goje noted that from the total sum of N242, 445,322,600.00, President Muhammadu Buhari had asked that the sum of N189, 2017,544,893.00 be allocated to INEC. However, the Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committees on INEC considered and approved the sum of N189, 007,272,393.00. He further recommended that the funding for the General Elections be vired from both the Recurrent and Capital components of Special Intervention Programme captured in the Service Wide Votes of the 2018 Appropriation Act.
Concluding his submission, Sen. Goje emphasized that the recommendations in the report covered only the request for INEC and that the report covering the mentioned security agencies will be presented at Senate’s next legislative sitting.
Click here to view the full report of the Committee
