Reps Stop NAFDAC’s N18.9bn Budget

The House of Representatives on Tuesday stopped the consideration of the 2017 budget of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.

The budget of N18.9bn had earlier passed first and second readings before the House referred it to the Committee on Healthcare Services for NAFDAC to defend the proposals before the committee would report back to the plenary for approval.

However, when the report was due for consideration on Tuesday in the Committee of the Whole, it turned out that the Chairman of the Committee on Healthcare Services, Mr. Chike Okafor, was unavailable.

Besides, the budget, which was listed against Okafor’s name, lacked details.

In Okafor’s absence, the Deputy Chairman of the committee, Mr. Mohammed Usman, moved for the consideration of the budget.

But, as members settled down, the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, immediately observed that there were no details of the proposals.

“What is worth doing is worth doing well.

“This is not how we handle budgets in the House. There have to be details attacked. Without the details, we can’t proceed”, the speaker said.

Usman, reading the document Okafor prepared, merely gave the block figures of the budget.

The overhead cost from Federal Government’ appropriation in the budget is N7.5bn; while the overhead proposal from Internally Generated Revenue and other sources is N8.2bn.

The personnel cost is N4.4bn.