Buhari: COVID-19 donations will be disbursed through appropriation

May 6, 2020 12:24 pm

President Muhammadu Buhari says the disbursement of funds donated to the fight against COVID-19 will be done using appropriation.

In a statement on Tuesday, Henshaw Ogubike, director of information and press at the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, said the minister of finance, budget and national planning may liaise with the national assembly for emergency passage of a supplementary budget for the utilization of COVID-19 donation based on estimated total collection for the year.

“Funds are to be appropriated directly to participating MDA and spending units like ministry of health, ministry of humanitarian affairs, Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, among others rather than to an intermediary agency like the presidential task Force (PTF),” NAN quoted Ogubike to have said.

“Administrative cost of the PTF shall be appropriated separately to the PTF secretariat. The advantage is that the respective spending units and their accounting officers take full responsibility for funds appropriated to them and likely bottlenecks at the PTF are eliminated.

“Given that there is a national emergency to which everyone including national assembly is invested in addressing, there is no doubt that legislature will be willing to fast track its passage.

“This will bind all spending units to the appropriation act and, in fact, provide the greatest measure of credibility and transparency to the management of the donation.

“To ensure equity and transparency in fund allocation, the minister of finance may work with the PTF to determine the needs of participating MDA such as health, humanitarian affairs, NCDC among others.

“Affected MDAs shall present details of their needs together with estimated cost. This will form the basis for allocation of funds and enables post expenditure reporting and audit. Funds are to be transferred to TSA sub accounts of spending units based on approved allocations.”

According to Ogubike, the president approved the opening of five COVID-19 donor accounts which form part of the existing treasury single account (TSA) arrangement in five commercial banks.

The approved banks are Zenith Bank, Access Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, UBA and First Bank.

Donations through the Nigeria private sector coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID), stood at N27.1 billion as of April 23.

The director stated that all collections into the commercial bank accounts were to be swept into federal government’s sub-recurrent account with the CBN and failure to sweep all balances within 24 hours should be deemed a violation of the presidential directive on TSA and would attract sanctions.