N3.5bn budget insufficient for police ministry – Minister

The Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi, has stated that the ministry cannot carry out its functions efficiently with the N3.5bn allocated to it in the 2023 Appropriations Bill.

Dingyadi, while defending the budget proposed by the ministry for 2023 before the joint Senate and House of Representatives in Abuja on Tuesday, said despite the outcry over the amount allocated in the 2022 Appropriations Act, there was no improvement in 2023.

He noted that the ministry was allocated N3.5bn out of a total budget of N871bn earmarked for the ministry and agencies under it. According to him, the Nigerian Police Force got N805bn, while the Nigeria Police Trust Fund is to receive N57bn.

The minister said, “You’re aware of the mandate of the Ministry of Police Affairs. In order to achieve our mandate, resources were provided for us in the 2022 budget for personnel, overhead, and capital expenditures. For the purposes of implementation, actual releases in the main ministry for the 2022 budget as of date are N1.7bn. Out of this, the sum of N291m has been released for overhead and N1.4bn for capital. The released capital funds have largely been utilised to carry out critical programs, while procurement processes for capital projects are still ongoing.”

He added, “For the 2023 budget, the main ministry has a total budget of N3,553,590,805. For the Nigeria Police Force, it is N805, 580,450,659; Police Academy, Wudil, it is N5,177,414,613; Nigeria Police Trust Fund, it is N57,14,287,532; and the total budget is N871,307,212,609. Despite the outcry over the 2022 budget, there is no significant improvement in the 2023 budgetary provisions.

“It is, therefore, obvious from the foregoing that for the ministry to carry out its mandate of ensuring adequate security of lives and property in Nigeria, the provisions proposed for this task in the year 2023, particularly for the main ministry and Police Academy, Wudil, are considered inadequate. While we appreciate the innovation the parliament has taken to fund the police in the areas of fueling of vehicles and so on, we look up to you at this point to intervene and improve the funding for the implementation of our mandate.”

He stated this during a joint budget hearing of the agencies under the jurisdiction of the Committees on Police, chaired by Senator Halliru Jika and Hon. Bello Kumo.

GOGAN TV