Refugee Commission Boss Appeals to Reps for More Funding
The federal commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), Senator Basheer Garba Mohammed (Lado) has appealed to the House of Representatives committee on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and humanitarian matters, to use its legislative power for more funding for the commission.
The commissioner made the appeal during the commission’s budget defense at the House of Representative on Thursday.
According to Senator Mohammed, “the commission is faced with a lot of challenges which we believe can be surmounted with your support to it as usual. The challenges are enumerated in our earlier submission.
“The most critical aspect of the challenges is paucity of funds to run its activities, and I wish to humbly crave the indulgence of this Honourable Committee to use its legislative powers to see to the funding of the Commission”, he added.
“The Commission has been working assiduously to ensure the implementation of its mandate, and has of recent recorded achievements and landmarks which are geared towards ameliorating the living conditions of our citizens displaced by the activities of Boko Haram, Banditry and common natural disasters”.
The commissioner had earlier stated that the sum of N5.7bn was appropriated for the agency as capital and recurrent expenditure in 2020, adding that the amount represents 36.5% increase from 2019.
He further said overhead was N29m, adding that the commission just awarded contracts due to the delay occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic. He said out of the total sum, only N4.2m for overhead has been released so far while the sum of N2.1bn was approved for zonal intervention (constituency) projects for lawmakers.
Speaking, the chairman of the committee, Hon Muhammad Jega commended the commission for the budget presentation and assured of the committee’s continued support in helping the commission make life better for displaced persons.
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