The House of Representatives has absolved the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to President Muhammadu Buhari on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Orelope-Adefulire of financial impropriety, amounting to N33 billion.
This as the Chairman House Committee on SDGs, Rotimi Agunsoye debunked a publication by The Nation Newspaper, with the headline ” 2020 Budget: Row over N33b SDGs’ vote” stating that the sum of N33 billion was included in the allocation of SDGs in the 2020 Budget without details being provided to the National Assembly and consequently directing the Ministry of Finance to stop release of allocation to the SDGs office.
Agunsoye in a statement Friday night said a correspondence was sent to the Ministry of Finance in respect of the subject matter, upon which clarification was sought from the SDGs office without any indictment on the person or the office of the SSA-SDGs, indicating misappropriation of the 2020 budgetary allocation of her office.
“The House Committee on SDGs got records from the OSSAP-SDGs and Appropriation Committee which shows the said additional 33 billion was not appropriated for SDGs office among provisions of the 2020 budget earlier assented by Mr. President upon which we all know the prevalence of Covid-19 distorted implementation of entire 2020 budget.
“The legislature is determined to ensure adequate oversight of all appropriations for the implementation of SDGs programmes in all ministries and agencies of government as well captured, as soon as we get adequate correspondence from the House Appropriation Committee to further ascertain fund release in order to guide our oversight activities. Hence, the recent official correspondence from both Senate and House SDGs committees to the finance ministry to release the budget provisions of OSSAP-SDGs so as to enable our committee to oversight accordingly.
“This clarification became imperative to avoid any misrepresentation of the earlier correspondence between the National Assembly Committees on SDGs and Finance Ministry as any financial indictment on the person and office of the OSSAP-SDGs”, the statement read.
