On Wednesday, the Senate approved N11,352,457,101.70 as the budget for the Nigeria Police Trust Fund for the fiscal year 2020.
The approval came after consideration of the harmonized study of the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Police Affairs.
The implementation of the NPTF 2020 budget is expected to expire on April 30, 2021
In his presentation, Senator Halliru Jika, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, noted that the Joint Committee noted that “this is the first NPTF budget since the Act of Establishment came into being in 2019.”
According to him, “only the 0.5 percent of the total revenue accrued to the federation account and 0.5 percent of the total VAT were remitted to the NPTF Account, adding that, “other sources of revenue as prescribed in the NPTF Establishment Act have not made any remittance.”
Therefore, he called on the NPTF to speed up measures to implement the 2020 budget in order to meet the deadline of 30 April 2021.
Giving a breakdown of the budget component, the legislator said that projected revenue was put at N34,984,314,243 for capital and N11,354,457,101.70.
He, however, clarified that the balance of N23,631,857,141.30 will be transferred to the NPTF’s 2021 budget.
In addition, he noted that the purchase of utility vehicles in the budget was replaced by the purchase of N358,379,191.00 of the Covid-19 protection kits for police staff and the sum of N533,894,117.70 for the purchase of drugs and medical equipment.
In his remarks, the Senate President said the approval of the NPTF budget would “help the police increase their capabilities and, of course, provide better and better services nationwide.”
Lawan further said that “this is one of the benefits of what we have passed here – the Police Trust Fund – and I’m sure that the National Assembly will continue to support our security agencies for optimal performance”.
Educator, writer and legal researcher at Alafarika for Studies and Consultancy.