By Ahmed I. Shekarau, Group Business Editor

The minister of state for finance, Mrs. Usman, was reported last week Monday by Punch newspaper to have said that the federal government will source money to fund the conference from the CRF, which belongs to it only (as a tier of government) and not from the Federation Acc-ounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) as widely speculated. The FAAC’s funds belong to the three tiers of government in the federation.
Specifically, Punch in its edition of Monday, Febr-uary21, 2005, reported Nenadi Usman as saying: “It is not true that the FAAC is providing funds to fund the national political reform conference.
“You will recall that the President had gone to the National Assembly for approval of the sum of N932 million for the conference which was not approved.
The federal government is going to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which is the federal government’s acco-unt in the Central Bank of Nigeria,” she said.
Daily Trust gathered from sources that the news report has generated a lot of contr-oversy as the appropriation committees of the Upper and Lower chambers of the National Assembly have begun investigations, trying to ascertain the veracity of the report with a view to querying the presidency over the matter.
It is illegal for the federal government to draw from the CRF and spend on any pro-ject or programme that is not appropriated, even though the account belongs to it as a tier of government.
A dependable source in the presidency told Daily Trust last week that on the basis of the news report, “the minister (Nenadi) has been issued a query, asking her to explain why she made that public statement.”
The source disclosed further that “that report embarrassed the presidency, particularly now that we understand that members of the Senate and House of Representatives, most of whom have not hidden their opposition to the confab, are trying to probe the Presi-dency, trying to find proof that the money was drawn without appropriation”.
When contacted by Daily Trust over the issue weekend, the chief press secretary to the minister of state for finance, Ogaziechi C. Theo-dore, said “at no time did Ma-dam (Nenadi) say thro-ughout the interview session she had after the FAAC meeting of that day (Friday, February 18, 2005), that the government was going to draw the confab’s money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund”, stressing that “he (the Punch reporter) was not the only journalist that interviewed Madam. Other reporters, including your man (Daily Trust reporter) were there (at the interview session), why didn’t any journalist report that angle except him?”
Similarly in a press stat-ement he signed and issued on Saturday, the chief press secretary to the minister of state reiterated his denial, saying that “the information was wrong and misleading”.
According to the two-page press statement: “It is true that on the 18th of February, 2005, the Honourable Minister of State for Finance, Mrs. Nenadi Usman granted a press interview to Finance Correspondents from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Daily Trust, the Sun and the Punch newspapers where she summarised the outcome of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting.
“It is also true that a question relating to where the federal government would source funds for the National Political Reform Conference was asked by the same reporter (of Punch). It is also true that the Honourable Minister responded noting that as long as FAAC is concerned, the FG had no absolute control over the funds and as such cannot source funds from this purse.
“However, she explained that the FG has a range of avenues where it can source for funds for its projects, which included the Consolidated Fund,” stressing that “at no time did the Honourable Minister categorically state that the funds for the Conference will be or has been sourced from the consolidated fund”.
Section 80 (2) of the 1999 constitution says: “No monies shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Rev-enue Fund of the Federation except to meet expenditure that is charged upon the fund by this constitution or where the issue of those monies has been authorised by an Appropriation Act, Supplementary Appropriation Act or an Act passed in pu-rsuance of Section 81 of this Constitution”.