NDLEA Denies N4.5bn Budget Padding

National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) has explained how N4.5 billion allegedly meant for the construction of a police barracks got into its proposed 2022 budget.
There have been accusations that the budgetary allocation of the anti-drug agency was padded following discovery of the N4.5 billion allocation for building of police barracks.
But while reacting to the insinuations, NDLEA’s Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA, Mr Femi Babafemi, in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja denied the budget padding claim.
Babafemi said the suggestion that the agency’s budget proposal submitted by the Federal Ministry of Finance was padded with N4.5 billion for the construction of police barracks was a mistake.
Rather, he said the allocation was for building of barracks for personnel of NDLEA as approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“It is public knowledge that President Muhammadu Buhari magnanimously approved the construction of barracks for NDLEA over a period of four years, starting from 2022 fiscal year”.
“Investigations have confirmed that the amount in question is, indeed, for the construction of NDLEA barracks but typographically inputted as ‘police barracks’ in one of the documents attached to the proposal from the budget office.
“The typo error has since been corrected and the budget cleared on Tuesday by the Senate Committee,” he said.