COVID-19: Reps demand report on N83bn intervention fund
The House of Representatives Monday directed the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Central Bank of Nigeria to provide a comprehensive report on the N83bn approved by the Presidency for the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to fight the pandemic.
Chairman, House Committee on Public Accounts, Wole Oke, issued the directive while addressing a delegation of the PTF led by the permanent Secretary (General Services) in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Olusegun Adekunle.
Oke urged the PTF to return unspent funds to the Treasury Singe Account domiciled with the CBN.
He said the committee would also investigate the utilization of the $125m grant obtained by the Ministry of Health.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Abdulaziz Abdullahi, said prior to the set-up of the PTF, an agency of the ministry, Port Health Division, received N71m and screened passengers at the port entry.
“Then NCDC received two tranches, the first tranche is N315m and another tranche of N620m that was before the setting up of PTF.
“It was extra-budgetary, it was a special intervention.
“When the task force was set up sometimes in March like the Perm Sec, said it’s multi-sectoral, it coordinates about 9 ministries, NCDC and the DG SSS.
“The whole technical working groups were set up and each were asked to make a concept plan and budget was allocated.
“The PTF now made a presentation to the presidency and a total budget of about N83bn was approved for the Task Force.
“Out of that N83bn, the Ministry of Health and its agencies got approval for N48bn for the provision of infrastructure nationwide and additional N21bn earmarked for health operations,” he said.
PTF Chairman and SGF Boss Mustapha, represented by the Permanent Secretary, General Services, Olusegun Adekunle, said the only fund utilised out of the N22,163,130,411 released to the PTF was N164,929,475 spent “to cater for the management of the affairs of returnees, evacuees from different parts of the world, Nigerians that are stranded from major parts of the world.”
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mustapha Suleiman, said the evacuees only paid for their tickets back to Nigeria.
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