The Senate has admitted a bill for consideration to stem alleged abuses of the Special Fund Accounts by the Presidency.
The bill arose from an investigation conducted by the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, which uncovered various abuses of the accounts to the tune of N783bn.
The Special Fund Accounts include the Natural Resources Development Account, Sugar Development Fund, Ecological Fund Account and Derivation Account, all domiciled in the Ministry of Finance.
It was discovered that funds accruing to the accounts were spent on projects completely outside their mandate and at variance with the purposes for which the accounts were created.
During one of the committee’s public hearings recently, officials of the Ministry of Finance claimed that all expenditure from the accounts received the approval of the President.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Ahmed Lawan, told our correspondent in an interview on Sunday that the bill, which was read for the first time on Thursday, would block all the loopholes noticed in the operation of the accounts.
He said, “The bill, read for the first time on Thursday, known as the Special Funds Account Bill, will establish the special funds for Natural Resources Development, Stabilisation Account and Ecology and Derivation.
“It is coming because of the massive and unwarranted abuse that we discovered during investigations of these accounts.”
Senator Abuja Ibrahim, in a motion to call attention to solid minerals development, had said the Natural Resources Fund, which is 1.68 per cent of the Federation Account, meant for the funding of solid minerals development had never been used for the purpose.
“It is reported that this year, over N250bn of the funds has been withdrawn and utilised elsewhere. The solid minerals sector has not benefited from the Natural Resources Fund and that the Fund accrued into it is being utilised in secrecy,” he said.
On other reports by the Public Accounts Committee, Lawan said the Senate was in the process of considering them.
“The Senate is working on getting our reports discussed. All the reports are of high interest to the senators. In fact, many senators are interested, including the leadership,” he said.