Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and national planning, says the Budget office wrongly coded the N206 billion discovered in the ministry of humanitarian affairs’ 2023 budget proposal.
Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, special adviser, media & communications, ministry of finance, disclosed in a statement after the minister’s meeting with the house committee on appropriation, Tuesday.
Ahmed, debunked the budget padding allegation, explaining that the N206 billion was an oversight, and it was for the national social safety nets project funded by the World Bank and domiciled in the humanitarian ministry.
She noted that a coding error resulted in the item being wrongly captured as “purchase of security equipment” and had nothing to do with budget padding.
The minister had expected her counterpart in the humanitarian affairs and disaster management ministry to have called the attention of the budget office to the issue like her counterparts in other ministries.
She disclosed that the ministry of defence, ministry of power, among others, also had similar error.
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