The Senate Committee on Appropriations has said its report on the 2022 Appropriation Bill will be laid, considered and adopted on Tuesday.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Barau Jibrin, made this known while briefing journalists after a meeting with the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, in Abuja on Monday.
Yakubu and his team were at the Senate on the invitation of the committee to get INEC’s needs for the 2023 general elections to be captured in the 2022 budget.
Jibrin said, “The presentation and consideration (of the report on the 2022 budget) will be tomorrow. We have been waiting for them (INEC) and they have given the detailed information of what they need.
“We are proceeding to put together our report for onward submission to the plenary tomorrow (Tuesday). We are presenting it tomorrow and it is going to be considered tomorrow as well by the Grace of God.”
Earlier, Yakubu told the lawmakers that INEC would need N305bn for the conduct of the general elections as well as off-circle elections scheduled for 2022.
The INEC boss noted that the 2022 Appropriation Bill had made provision for the sum of N140bn, out of which N40bn is for the regular budget of the commission while the remaining N100bn is for preparation for the elections.
Yakubu, however, said the N100bn earmarked in the Appropriation Bill was grossly inadequate, hence the need for additional N205bn.
Justifying the increase, the INEC boss noted that the commission has eight bye-elections pending, including Ekiti and Osun governorship elections.
He said, “The commission made a submission through the executive, being part of the executive body. We made a submission for N305bn for the 2023 general elections in a very comprehensive 22-page document with 260 budget lines.
“In submitting the executive proposal to the National Assembly, the sum of N140bn was made available to INEC as a one-line item in the budget and, as usual, we broke it down and submitted same to the committee that oversights INEC in both the House and the senate.
“The N140bn was broken into two. We take it that N40bn is our regular budget as an agency of government and N100bn was the first tranche of the 2022 budget, and we have gone ahead to make provisions accordingly.”
Yakubu also disclosed that there are some activities that must be concluded before the elections, such as buying of machines, voter registration, printing of ballot papers and other sensitive materials, provision for logistics, payment of ad hoc staff and cost of litigations.
The INEC boss also told the committee that the commission did not make provision for the controversial direct primaries, adding that the commission only made provision for all that is in the Electoral Act as approved.
Yakubu also announced that INEC has suspended the Ekiti-East Senatorial District bye-election after four unsuccessful attempts.
He lamented that in the last attempt, voters were killed as well as security operatives and electoral officers at polling units.
“INEC will never reward bad behaviour. The election can only be repeated in June next year during the gubernatorial election,” he stated.
