Reps' visitation: Panic in ministries, agencies

There are strongindications thatfederal ministries and agencies are panicking following the insistence of the House of Representatives to check details of implementation or otherwise of appropriations for federal projects and programmes in the 2012 budget.Checks across the ministries revealed scrambling for balancing and perfecting of project accounts and reports as the lawmakers had earlier engaged a number of consultants to compile confidential reports on the budget implementation within federal establishments.In a particular ministry, about N1.5 billion allocated for training activities was allegedly expended without any training while another agency was said to have diverted fund meant to encourage Nigerians for the use of Lebanese and other foreign nationals.Nigerian Tribune learnt that anxiety within the ministries was linked to the alleged fast tracking of implementation of budget in the last two months which allegedly led to some agencies doing sordid work in their bid to claim their allocations from the Ministry of Finance.The ultimatum issued on the Presidency by the House over Budget 2012 was said to have been exploited by some ministers, who allegedly blackmailed the Finance Ministry to release their allocations.Members of the House are, however, claiming that most federal projects were not properly executed.Reports in the hands of many committees of the House were said to have implicated many ministries, a situation said to be emboldening the lawmakers to want to embark on project verifications before attending to Budget 2013.
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