Reps Frown Over Minister ,Perm Sec Copy,Paste Budget

Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Regional Planning and Urban Development on Thursday lampooned the Minister of State, Power, Works and Housing, Baba Mustapha Shehuri, and the Permanent Secretary, Muhammad Bukar, over what they described as a “copy and paste” budget.

The lawmakers who frowned at the lack of details of expenditure in the 2018 appropriation also demanded the inclusion of overhead column on the document with accurate accounts of releases and how they were spent before the 2019 proposal could be considered.

Trouble began when a member of the Committee, Honourable Ossai Nichola Ossai (PDP, Delta), probed the bureaucrats regarding details of personnel spending as it relates to Unit-by-Unit allocations, as well as how releases were done, and if there were done according to each sub-heads or “done omnibursely”.

The panel also demanded details of staff who travelled for a certain African Union event and how much was spent per head.

Also pointed out was another trip relating to UN-Habitat event which coincided with the General Assembly in 2018, as members called for detail information of officials on the trip and amount spent on them.

Ossai insisted the minister must provide answers to his questions before the committee could proceed with consideration of the 2019 budget proposal, a demand that wasn’t met before he (Ossai) left the meeting.