Fred Itua, Abuja

The Budget Office has raised the alarm that about 428 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) will not be able to pay salaries by end of November.

Director General of Budget Office,  Ben Akabueze, who spoke when he appeared before the Senate committee on Public Account, blamed the development on the new minimum wage.

The director general, however, explained that the Federal Government would need to address this development from the service wide vote in order to cater for the shortfall in civil servant salaries for the month of November.

He said: “About 428 agencies will not be able to pay salary by the end of November, we take from service wide vote to take care of the short fall in workers salaries.”

Accusing the executive of deliberately under funding the Office of Auditor General of the Federation earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Mathew Urhoghide, frowned at a situation where some agencies are funded better than the others.

Urhoghide wondered how could an agency that is meant to fight institutional corruption be under funded by the executive while the other agencies like Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC)  are properly funded.

He lamented the continued under-funding of the Office of Auditor General of the Federation,  which is constitutionally charged with responsibility of ensuring transparency, accountability and probity in governance.

“Therefore the proposed budget of N4.6 billion may not be adequate for the audit of the sum of N13 trillion in the year 2021 being total budget proposal of the federal government of Nigeria.

“The office of the Auditor General for the federation is in need of replacing 247 retired staff which have not been provided for in the budget proposal. The promotion and annual increment of staff are also not factored into the year 2021 budget.

“There is need to digitalise and automate the system for better performance. The Auditor-General’s budget proposal for this purpose was not approved by the budget office.

“It is an irony that while the office which is constitutionally established to ensure accountability and transparency in the management of public funds of the federation is having a reduced allocation while similar agencies established to achieve a fraction of this objective are well funded through incremental budgetary allocations,” he said.

Responding to the issue of under funding of the Office of Auditor General of Federation, Akabueze explained to the lawmakers that the budget office will only appropriate fund to the Office of Auditor General of Federation based on the extant laws

He said since his emergence as the Director General of Budget office, there has been an improvement in the budget of Office of Auditor General of the Federation.

He said when it comes to capital budget the budget office is guided by the approved budget for those agencies.

Akabueze said the government could give any approval for the requirement in 2020 due to COVID-19, adding that it is illogical for government to recruit during COVID-19.

The DG said the sectors that did not shut down recruitment during the COVID-19 were health and security sector.