Senate okays N66.9bn Police Trust Fund budget

The Senate, on Wednesday, passed the N65.905bn budget of the Nigeria Police Trust Fund for the year 2022.

The fund is made up of personnel expenditure of N948.81m, total overhead costs of N8.857bn and total capital expenditure of N56.099bn.

The Senate passed the budget after it considered and adopted the harmonised report of its Committee on Police Affairs and that of the House of Representatives.

Presenting the report, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Senator Halliru Jika identified the revenue sources for the proposed budget as: 0.5 per cent of the total revenue accrued to the federation account amounting to N52.569bn; 0.5 per cent of total VAT at N11.720bn; 0.05 per cent of Net Profit of Companies in Nigeria which is N1.145bn and aids, grants donations, etc at N470.250m.

Explaining why the Fund was not able to implement its 2021 budget, Jika attributed it to a court case filed by the Rivers State government challenging the legality of deducting its money to finance the Fund.

He said it was based on that litigation that a directive was issued that all the monies accrued to the Fund be kept in an escrow account at the CBN pending the resolution of the matter. He said the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice had waded into the matter by advising that henceforth, only the share of the Rivers State should be domiciled in the escrow account, while other deductions were to be remitted to the Fund since it was the only state that filed the suit.