The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), has expressed discomfort about what he called the poor funding of his ministry and its agencies.
He said despite the huge responsibilities placed on the ministry, it was underfunded, besides suffering from poor release of its budgetary allocations.
Fagbemi spoke during his ministry’s budget defence before the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, yesterday in Abuja.
The AGF said his ministry was defending over 2,000 cases involving the Federal Government and its agencies.
He noted that out of the N8,010,130,587 allocated to the ministry for Capital and Recurrent Expenditure in this year’s budget, only N3,351,567,671.62 had been released as at the end of November.
Fagbemi urged the legislators to ensure that his ministry and its associated agencies got adequate funds to enable them function effectively.
He said,
“From my first-hand assessment of the justice sector upon assumption of office, it is obvious to me that a major challenge in the sector is underfunding.
“This critical sector requires significant investments for us to drive the much-needed legal and judicial reforms, achieve satisfactory compliance with human rights, democratic governance, the rule of law, among others.
“In His Excellency’s (President Bola Tinubu’s) budget speech, emphasis was placed on defence, security, law enforcement, property and investments, amongst other critical areas.
“These are areas wherein the relevance and role of the Federal Ministry of Justice are extremely critical.
“Distinguished chairman and members of the committee, permit me to highlight some of the critical mandate areas of the ministry for which we are pleading and praying this committee to empower the ministry with further legislative and budgetary support.
“It is quite fundamental for the ministry to be empowered to drive the current administration’s roadmap for the justice sector (legal and judicial reforms), which is one of the vital priority areas under the President’s eight priorities/focus areas.
“The Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation requires funding to perform its role of coordinating and oversighting the entire legal or justice sector institutions in Nigeria, provision of legal advice, review/vetting of agreements and treaties, etc.
“In the outgoing budget cycle for 2023, the ministry was allocated N3,321,283,533.00 as Capital Budget and N4,688,847,054.00 as recurrent budget.
“At the moment, and with less than 30 days to the end of the financial year, the ministry has only had releases of N617,456,896.00 for Capital Expenditure and N2,734,110,775.62 for Recurrent Expenditure. The foregoing has greatly constrained the performance of the ministry in its mandate areas.
“I wish to note that the process of prosecution of terror suspects and entities entails considerable funding, inclusive of catering for the logistics and welfare of prosecutors, support staff, witnesses, and provision of security for the trial, etc.
“In order to ensure the security and confidence of the judicial officers coupled with the location of the trial, the ministry is required to deploy enormous resources for transportation and other logistics.
“The ministry is also spending considerable resources on provision or upgrading of infrastructural facilities at the various venues to make them fit for purpose.
“I wish to note that there are huge backlogs of obligations which need to be cleared in order to sustain the current efforts of the ministry in reducing government’s exposure to judgment debts, as well as ensuring that implementation of government policies/projects are not hindered by litigation.
“It is to be noted that some of the unpaid claims, unfortunately, have been outstanding since 2007.
“The ministry is also currently defending over 2,000 cases, with huge potential liabilities, on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria and its MDAs. These cases require diligent prosecution and effective defence to avoid embarrassment and enforcement actions.”
The minister expressed the determination of his ministry to do its best in the face of several constraints.
Fagbemi added,
“We are quite determined to achieve a paradigm shift in 2024. We have also prepared a brief, highlighting the performance evaluation of the 2023 budget and details of the 2024 budget proposals to guide this noble committee in its assignment.
“Whilst the ministry has been promoting the policy of having state counsel in the ministry to handle more cases on behalf of the government, there are instances where the need to engage senior external solicitors become inevitable. Thus, greater funding is required to increase the capacity and boost the morale of state counsel through regular payment of duty tour allowances, robe allowances, etc.
“The professional fees of the private solicitors also need to be settled. The ministry is also involved in defending the country in international litigations and arbitrations which are by their nature very expensive to prosecute or defend in terms of payment of administrative fees to tribunals, professional fees to solicitors, expert fees, etc.
“These cases usually arise after the closure of the budget preparation and passage process, which means the ministry is unable to make specific budgetary requests for funding the cases.”
