Defence Received N130.7bn in Four Months Says Okonjo-Iweala

Betty Memirurayi, Abuja

The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on Friday that the Ministry of Defence received N130.7 billion between January and April.
The revelation is coming even as some military personnel are alleging that the military lacked the finance and equipment to tackle the dread sect, Boko Haram.

Iweala made the remarks during the annual budget breakdown in Abuja, during which she announced that President Goodluck Jonatan has signed the 2014 appropriation bill into law.

“Defence spending is top in everything; you know that military establishment need new things to assist them in their work and ours will not be different.

“No budget will be enough to meet their demands but for now, I think the sector takes almost a trillion of the budgets. To be specific, they have about N968.127 billion and we have disbursed N130.7 billion between January and April 2014,’’ she said.

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She told reporters that N85.9billion was disbursed as personnel cost, adding that another N3.8 billion approved by the President was being processed and would soon be released.

She said the sum of N200 billion was disbursed for the first quarter of the 2014 based on what the law allows the President to do adding that the delay in the President’s ascent would have minimal impact on the economy.