THE embattled acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, will tomorrow defend the budget of the agency, irrespective of outstanding issues concerning his confirmation, Vanguard has learned.
The decision of the Senate was informed by the fact that the upper chamber is yet to take a decision on the re-submission of his name for confirmation by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Anti- Corruption and Financial Crimes, Chukwuka Utazi, PDP, Enugu North, who told Vanguard that Magu would appear before the committee tomorrow to defend the 2017 budget proposals of his agency, said the EFCC had already, as at last Thursday, submitted all necessary documents, adding that members of the committee had got their copies ahead of the budget defence.
According to Utazi, it became imperative for all members of the committee to get the copies to enable them study the documents, understand the contents and prepare ahead for questions, comments and observations.
Utazi told Vanguard that Magu and the Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, Mr. Ekpo Nta, were earlier scheduled to defend their budget proposals last Tuesday, but noted that the committee shifted it because of the seminar the ICPC had in one of the states in the South-South.
When Vanguard asked him last Thursday when Magu would appear for the budget defence, Senator Utazi said: “The acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, will appear next Tuesday (tomorrow) for the budget defence.
“All the documents, annual reports have been submitted by him to the committee. The last ones were brought today (last Thursday) which were sent to the office of the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, and he minuted them to me.”
‘’I have shared the documents to committee members to study and understand them ahead of the budget defence.
“ The budget defence of ICPC and EFCC was fixed for last week, but it did not hold because the ICPC had a workshop in Calabar.”
The 2017 Budgetary allocation to the EFCC was increased to N17.2 billion from N11.2billion in 2016, with N4.58 billion of this amount meant for completion of the commission’s new head office building, while N1.1 billion is to furnish the office and N244.727m for consultancy.
According to the budget document, the EFCC will also be spending N60m on the completion of its Lagos office building and N10m on consultancy for the same project.
The commission is also expected to spend N737.85m on the training of its personnel, compared to the N111.587m budgeted for the same purpose in 2016.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment