Joint Assembly Committee demands last budget accountability for 2025 approval.

The joint committee, upper and lower houses of National Assembly on Agriculture and food services has ordered for exhaustive accountability of last year fiscal for all the agencies under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security ( FMAFS).

This they said would pre-determine the approval for fiscal budget spending for year 2025 at the last Thursday's meeting with some of the agencies that appeared.

The chairman of the committee, Sen. Saliu Mustapha promised to subsist on directives of President Tinubu' who had asked them to ensure that all agencies defend their budget before approval.

The committee's demand was coming on the heels of the absence of the Director General, National Agricutural Quarantine Services, Dr. Vincent Isegbe and who was asked to appear the following Monday.

Reacting to representative of NAQS, Sen. Saliu Mustapha " We are not going to attend to you. When the president presents this budget, he made it clear that all heads of agencies must come to defend their estimate and should therefore call off any plan to travel. We are going to give him another time, but that may not be convenient for him  because we have time frame to submit our report"

He stressed the need for adequate budgetary provision for the sector in view of World Food Program predictions of 33.1 millions of Nigerians that may face food challenges in 2025.

Meanwhile, the Executive Secretary ( ES), National Agricutural Development Fund ( NADF) Muhammed Ibrahim and his colleague from NASC, Ishiak Khalid have both told the committee about almost non payment of capital budget for year 2924with only 9% paid for seed council.

Muhammed Ibrahim said that " Unlike the seed council, we had zero release in our capital allocation in 2024. But that is not all. About 15th months after we assume office, we are yet to have a salary scale. Most of our staff are deployed from other agencies of government"

Ibrahim is asking for approval to spend on enhancing seed production system, scaling up Agricutural financing and improving rural infrastructure to boost food security and grow economy.