The Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Defence has expressed shock at the gap that exists between the Ministry of Defence and the services.
The Chairman of the Joint Committee and President of the 9th Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan raised the observation in his response to the Minister’s presentation of the Ministry’s budget.
He told the Minister of Defence, Badaru Abubakar that in his speech he said what he was defending is the 2024 appropriation proposal as it relates to the Ministry headquarters.
“Honestly, I’m not happy with that. You are the Minister of Defence, not Minister of the headquarters and at the press of a button you are supposed to see the budget of the Ministry of Defence, including everyone, not the Ministry headquarters. This to me is a message for the Ministry. You are supposed to supervise the work of the entire Ministry of Defence ecosystem, for everyone, all the services, all the other agencies; they are supposed to be under your power,” Senator Lawan said.
Senator Lawan was of the view that “this is part of our problem in the defence of our country because it doesn’t make sense to me that the minister will be restricted to defending the budget of only the ministry headquarters. That should be the Permanent Secretary’s work. The minister is supposed to be in grip of everything.
“I thinks there is need for us to work together with the executive to see how we can address this kind of situation because it is simply not going to work. The Ministry of Defence is the Ministry of Defence” he said.
Lawan was also not impressed with the request by the minister for an upward review of the ministry’s budget.
The former Senate President said, “Honourable Minister, this budget proposal was done two, three weeks ago. It’s supposed to be your business then to know that the prices of diesel and other things are already up and I’m sure they have not increased in the last two weeks. You might have been constrained by this envelop”.
Earlier in his defence of the 2023 budget performance and presentation of the 2024 proposal, the Minister of Defence, Badaru Abubakar has assured the National Assembly that the Ministry is committed to deliver on its core mandate.
“The Ministry is totally committed in actualizing its core mandate and I believe the Distinguished Senators and Honourable Members will assist to achieve this mandate,” Badaru assured the Legislature.
He used the medium to appeal to the National Assembly to review the ministry’s overhead cost in view of the current economic situation which hinders the Ministry from functioning effectively.
“You are aware of the inflation trend and the cost of diesel, petrol and the operation cost. The overhead is very low and we ask you to increase the overhead, especially the overhead of the Brigade of Guards, they consume a lot of fuel and it is very important and I appeal that you look into that” he appealed.
Lawan assured the minister that they will try their best to address the provision of resources “For the defence of our country because that no one in the country will say no to and no one will say it is frivolous, but we will insist on value for money”.
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