The Federal Government on Thursday disclosed its decision baring Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) from spending money for the Service Wide Votes.
The Minister of Finance Kemi Adeosun told the Senate Committee on Finance that the restriction became necessary in view of abuse of the vote by MDAs over the years.
The Committee chaired by Sen. John Enoh had queried the management of the huge sums domiciled with the ministry stressing that over 90 per cent of the funds are usually spent annually.
She said that the ministry had now decided to reject all request from MDAs seeking to spend from the votes stressing that the Service Wide Votes was only meant for unforeseen exigencies.
`` We are checking the use of service wide votes, many memos that are come up to us now trying to use service wide votes we are sending them back to their various ministries.
``This should either have been budgeted for or go back and find a way to accommodate it within your budget because it is, as you have pointed out correctly, subject to some abuse,
``It appears that in some cases we have seen that ministries actually aggregate things and push it to Service Wide Votes, we don’t think that is the right way to go.
`` We are now pushing agencies back that you cannot use service wide votes, go and find something else to use or go and find a way in your budget.
``We think that the Service Wide Votes should be the last resort and that there is no other place that this money could be taken from and therefore we use service wide votes.
``We are going to strengthen the controls, the point around how the service wide vote is used is a very valid one and it is something that we are now conscious about.
``Over time you would see that as the budgeting plan improves, the service wide vote should actually reduce because we should be able to apportion many of these costs to the specific ministries,” she said.
The minister who is responsible for signing releases from the service wide votes explained to the committee that the money was not a budget within the budget.
She said that the vote was a contingency which every good budget should have because there would always be unforeseen events that need to be accommodated.
She said that there were Service Wide initiatives and costs which could not readily be ascribed to a single ministry, such as payment for transfers to the Treasury Single Account.
The minister therefore disclosed that the upon agreement on a reasonable amount with all stakeholders, the company providing the TSA service will be paid for the Service Wide Vote.
She further explained that payments from the votes are raised by the DG Budgets while the warrants are signed by the Minister of Finance.
The members of the committee had earlier raised eyebrows as to the management of the votes querying whose responsibility it was to account for the money.
They had decried that the money which was usually huge, is usually spent but no proper account is given about how it was spent.
The committee therefore charged the Minister to ensure prudent management of the funds adding that ll expenditure from it must be fully defended at the end of the fiscal year.
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