House Of Reps Probe Army Over Non-Payment Of Allowances To Personels Despite Budget Increment

The House of Representatives is to investigate the alleged non-payment of non-regular allowances to soldiers by the Nigerian Army since 2017 to date.

The House, in it’s resolution mandated the Committee on Army to “investigate the disbursement of non-regular allowances to Army personnel from 2017 till date and report back to the House within four weeks.” The Army will be probed over non-payment of soldiers’ allowances despite budget increment.

A member, Abubakar Nalaraba, had moved a motion that was unanimously adopted at the plenary on Wednesday, titled, ‘Need to investigate the non-payment and under utilisation of non-regular allowances of Nigerian Army personnel despite increment in budgetary provision for these Allowances in 2020 and 2021’.

The lawmaker noted that the allowance, which includes payments such as first 28 days allowance, operations allowance and duty tour allowance of soldiers and officers, was necessitated to mitigate the effects of current economic realities on the welfare of troops and entire personnel of the Nigerian Army.

Nalaraba stressed that the increment was captured in the Manual of Finance Administration and approved for implementation by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on January 26, 2018. The member said, “The House is concerned that despite the increment in budgetary provision for non-regular allowances from N283bn in 2020 to about N380bn in 2021, the Army personnel have not felt the corresponding effect, and personnel of Nigerian Army involved in internal security operations, training and performance of other military duties are still being owed various types of non-regular allowances.”