Senate Passes ₦66.9bn Police Trust Fund Budget

The Nigerian Senate has passed the ₦65.905bn budget of the Nigeria Police Trust Fund for the year 2022.

The trust fund is made up of personnel expenditure of ₦948.81m, total overhead costs of ₦8.857bn and total capital expenditure of ₦56.099bn.

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

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, Senator Halliru Jika while presenting the report revealed that the revenue sources for the proposed budget as: 0.5 per cent of the total revenue accrued to the federation account amounting to ₦52.569bn; 0.5 per cent of total VAT at ₦11.720bn; 0.05 per cent of Net Profit of Companies in Nigeria which is ₦1.145bn and aids, grants donations, etc at ₦470.250m.

He stated that the Fund was not able to implement its 2021 budget because of a court case filed by the Rivers State government challenging the legality of deducting its money to finance the Fund.

Jika explained that the litigation was based on a directive 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.