by Azeez Adeniyi

The Senate has asked the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun to release the outstanding N15bn in the 2016 budgetary allocation to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

The amnesty beneficiaries have reported been owed for 5 months.

The Senate also mandated its Committee on Niger Delta to investigate the causes of the programme’s funding constraint.

Senator Peter Nwaboshi had filed a motion on the non-payment of the beneficiaries.

He said that the challenges resulted from delayed and staggered release of funds from the 2016 Appropriation Act to the programme.

He said the situation was already threatening the programme.

Nwaboshi said the Senate had appropriated N35 billion to the programme in the supplementary budget, after the Federal Government allocated N20 billion to it.

He, however, lamented that only N40 billion of the total N55 billion appropriated to the programme was released.

The lawmakers unanimous adopted the decision through a voice vote.

The Senate also asked its committee ro investigate how names of persons believed not to be indigenes of Abia and Akwa Ibom surfaced as beneficiaries of the amnesty programme.