N5trn Service Wide Votes: Senate Begins Investigation Of 252 MDAs

The Senate has begun the holistic investigation of 252 government agencies that benefited from N5trillion Service Wide Votes (SWV) between 2017 and 2021.
Senate’s move to investigate the Service Wide Votes (SWV) was sequel to the discovery that many agencies of government collected Fund from SWV without recourse to the National Assembly Panels that is mandated by law to oversight the agencies.
A Service Wide Vote (SWV), which is also known as the Consolidated Revenue Fund Charge, is more or less the country’s contingency fund in the annual budget.
Speaking, yesterday, in Abuja, Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, explained that the investigation has to do with disbursement of Service Wide Votes between 2017 and 2021, adding the Service Wide Votes has become major component of nation’s budget considering amount budgeted annually for it in the budget.
Urhoghide, who noted that the committee has to see how the money collected from Service Wide Votes, was being expended because there are confusion on the approval of the votes, said, “we want to see how this money is being expended there are confusion on approval, we want to really get to know what is going on.”
According to him, if any agency fails to appear, the committee would not hesitate to issue warrant of arrest on the head of the agency against the backdrop that it has been discovered that many agencies collected this fund without informing the National Assembly Committee that is saddled with the responsibility of over sighting the agency.
Urhoghide, who noted that the Senate would not tolerate the absence of Galaxy Backbone, Ministry of Interior, Budget Office, State House, NBET, who are scheduled to appear before the committee, said that Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) collected N180billion from the votes, NBET collected N2.9billion and Ministry of Humanitarian, received N445billion from the votes.
Among the 252 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that are expected to appear before the committee in the ongoing Investigation of Service Wide Votes between 2017 and 2021 are Ministry of Information and Culture; Defence, NHIS, Police, Ministry of Power, Bank of Industry; Water Resources, National Assembly, Public Complaint Commission (PCC), Directorate of State Service (DSS) and the Presidential Amnesty Programme.