Hajiya Zainab said this while fielding questions from State House reporters after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The minister, while reacting to a question on the plan to send a supplementary budget to the National Assembly, said her ministry had met with the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Lucky Irabor and the three service chiefs on the urgent need to have the estimates for the military hardware to be purchased.
She said the security chiefs had not furnished her office with the details but voiced hope that the estimate will be submitted soon.
JournalReporters reported that soldiers in the frontline are complaining of lack of fighting equipment, a development they attributed to their inability to tame terrorism, banditry and kidnapping.
President Muhammadu Buhari had during his meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly on Monday hinted that he would submit a supplementary budget proposal for funds to buy arms and COVID-19 vaccines.
This is because there was no provision was made for the purchase in the 2021 Finance Bill adopted in December 2020.
Senate President Ahmad Lawan told reporters after their meeting with Buhari that both the executive and legislature believed that a supplementary budget should be provided to address the challenges posed by COVID-19 and insecurity.
“And that is why we are expecting our Tucsons to be here soon. We are expecting some APCs from Jordan. We are expecting some APCs from China. And we believe that we have not had enough, we still need to approve more resources for the purchase of weapons for our armed forces, because this is the number one priority of government or any government really, to secure the people, and of course later the welfare.”
According to Hajiya Zainab, “For the military hardware, we have met with the service chiefs and the chief of defence staff. They are supposed to aggregate their request for review amongst themselves and then pass it to Mr President; then it will be sent to us. So, we are waiting for the information of the aggregate requirements.”
She announced that the supplementary budgetary estimate for COVID-19 vaccines prepared by her ministry and that of health was ready.
She, however, said that the amount initially voted for the building of primary healthcare centres had been put on hold for now.
According to her, “Sometime in January, the president, based on the request by the ministry of health gave an approval in principle for the ministry of health to work with the ministry of finance, budget and national planning to prepare and take to the National Assembly, a supplementary budget for COVID-19 vaccination.
“The submission that was made to Mr President at that time was in the sum of N399 billion, but included in this N399 billion was a N103 billion for the building of primary healthcare centres. So, we have worked with and met several times with the ministry, we have agreed to back out from this building of primary health care centres…That can wait till later. So, there is still a provision of N396 billion for COVID-19 vaccinations for 2021 and 2022”.
Reviewed by Jude
on
April 01, 2021
Rating:
No comments: