Govt cuts EFCC 2013 budget by N11.7bn

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From JOSHUA I. EGBODO, Abuja
INDICATIONS emerged
yesterday that the Federal Government has slashed the 2013 budget of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by over 11.7 billion Naira.
However, Chairman of the Commission, Ibrahim Larmode said the development would in part prevent the anti-graft agency from fully meeting its personnel cost in the 2013 fiscal year. Larmode had appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes to defend the Commission’s budget of next year.
EFCC had proposed 21,028,488,772 billion Naira to fund its operations in 2013 but the Budget Office approved 9,328,159,022 billion Naira – less than half of the commission’s request to meet capital, personnel and overhead expenditure items.
According to the EFCC boss, the Federal Government failed to release 25 million Naira appropriated for the purchase of arms and ammunition for the commission this year.
Members of the Committee, led by Jagaba Adams Jagaba queried what they described as “epileptic” releases by the Finance Ministry to the EFCC as evident in 15 per cent deficit in cashbacked 2012 release to the commission with a month left to the end of the fiscal year.

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