[size=13pt]Reps kick as minister seeks N622.5m for trips[/size]

THE continued violation of budgetary provisions and unauthorised spending by public functionaries came under attack during talks between the federal legislature and officials of the Executive arm of government yesterday in Abuja.

Members of the House of Representatives, who met with the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Mr. Emeka Wogu, protested against the ministry’s spending of additional N184 million on trips last year without the approval of the National Assembly.

Only last Thursday, the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) headed by former Defence Minister, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, took the campaign against high cost of governance in Nigeria to President Goodluck Jonathan in Aso Rock, Abuja.

But the elder council’s pleas to the President for a cut in the overhead costs of Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) seems not to have meant anything to some public officials, including ministers, whose provisions for overhead costs in the 2011 budget are considered outrageous.

At the defence of the 2011 budget of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity yesterday before the House House Committee on Labour and Productivity, Wogu asked the lawmakers to approve N622.5 million for the ministry’s foreign and local trips.

Curiously, the ministry spent N285.7 million on local trips alone in 2010 as against the N128.6 million appropriated for that purpose.
He said of the ministry’s N9.13 billion budget now before the National Assembly, N300 million would be spent on local travels and N322.5 million for international tours in the current year.

But the committee members were not happy that the ministry spent over N184 million as extra expenditure on trips in 2010 without the consent of the National Assembly.

The ministry also spent N263.1 million on foreign trips last year as opposed to the N78.85 million appropriated for that purpose.

In his defence, Wogu said: “There are many international labour conferences and meetings worldwide that are mandatory for us to attend. These include three meetings per year holding in Geneva. Each one costs an average of N40 million; the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Ministers of Labour Congress, African Regional Labour Arbitration Centre and Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) and others that cost an average of N20 million per trip. They are mandatory meetings of which Nigeria is executive member in some of the bodies.”


On the local travel and transport components of the budget, the minister said: “Specifically, we had travel commitments of over N71 million that could not be accommodated due to the revised budget of 2010. We believe that an increase of up to 60 per cent in the proposed budget could be reasonable.”

The NN9.15 billion budget of the ministry is made up of N8.283 billion for personnel and overhead costs and a capital vote of N775.9 million. The proposed personnel and overhead costs are N4.995 billion and N3.288 billion in that order.

Earlier the panel’s chairman, Ado Dogo Audu told the minister that the meeting was necessary for the lawmakers to appraise the ministry’s performance in 2010 as well as the justification for the 2011 proposals.

Other highlights of the ministry’s budget include N250.5 million for the training of “500 members of staff across various cadres in the headquarters and the 36 states of the federation, N72 million for security services, N52.5 million for cleaning and fumigation of the ministry’s headquarters and the 36 state offices, and N70.2 million for meetings of the Labour Advisory Council, among others.

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