The Senate on Tuesday approved the security budget of N53.2 billion for the 2019 general elections.
The approval of the budget followed a presentation of the report of
the National Assembly Joint Committee on Appropriation at plenary.
The Senate further approved that the money be vired from both the
recurrent and capital components of the Special Intervention Programme
captured in the Service Wide Vote of the 2018 Appropriation Act.
Presenting the report, the Chairman of the committee, Sen. Danjuma
Goje, said that the committee members met and agreed to approve the
budget of security agencies as part of the budget for the 2019
elections.
“The committee, having considered the report of its sub-committees on
INEC Security and intelligence, interior and police affairs in respect
of the provisions for INEC, NSA, DSS, NSCDC, NIS and NPF, approved
request by President Muhammadu Buhari for passage,” Goje said.
The report showed the amount Buhari had requested for each of the
agencies as follows: Office of National Security Adviser (NSA) (N4.3
billion) and Immigration (N2.6 billion).
Others are Department of State Security (DSS) (N12.2 billion),
Nigeria Police Force (NPF) (N30.5 billion), National Security and Civil
Defence Corps (NSCDC) (N3.6 billion).
However, the Senate approved N9.5 billion for NSA, N2.6 billion for
Immigration, N10.2 billion for DSS, N27.3 billion for NPF and NSCDC,
N3.6 billion.