Governor El-rufai has said he was prepared to open the books for those willing to audit his security votes.
According to him, his security vote was being controlled by the Secretary to the State Government.
The governor, who spoke at an interactive session with Nigerian Youths in Abuja, said there were a lot of misconceptions about security votes.
He said security vote was not unconstitutional.
The governor said: “Go and read your constitution. The state House of Assembly has the power to appropriate anything and security vote is a line charge in the budget and so. It is not illegal. But it is how it is used is the issue.
“I am ready to open the books for those willing to audit my security votes.
“I know of a former governor who used to collect N1.5 billion in cash as security votes and come to Abuja. It has been subject of abuse and that is not how it should be. The idea of security vote is for the governor to have discretionary funds to deal with emergency situations because you don’t know when you will have security challenges and you need money to be able to respond to these challenges.
“Sometimes, you need money to pay for information and sometimes, you can’t imagine the type of people you pay as informant because armed robbers patronize a lot of places and you need to know what they are planning next. Another use of security vote is to support security agents in the states.”
