Buhari's panel spends N6 bn on food

*Buhari’s panel spends N6 Bn on foodstuffs refreshment, for IDPs*

Members of the House of Representatives are alarmed over what they call the “worrisome spending plans” of the Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative, which had a budget of N45bn in 2017.

Between December 2016 and May 2017 alone, the committee spent a whopping N6.1bn on “foodstuffs and catering materials,” “drugs and medical supplies,” “medical services consulting,” “refreshment and meals” and “purchasing of bulling materials.” The PCNI, a temporary intervention measure by the Federal Government, is to provide relief services to Internally Displaced Persons in the North-East.

The IDPs are mainly the victims of Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East and are scattered in various camps in Borno, Adamawa, Yobe , Gombe and Bauchi states. Budget documents The PUNCH obtained in Abuja on Thursday, showed that the committee got approval to spend another N21bn in 2017 on largely the same services and got a retention of another N45bn in the 2018 budget now before the National Assembly.