The Senate, on Monday, condemned the poor budgetary provision for the Ajaokuta Steel Complex in Kogi State and blamed the development for the inability of the firm to take off.
The Senate Committee on Solid Minerals, Mines, Steel Development and Metallurgy made the condemnation when officials of the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development appeared before it to defend the 2022 budget.
The panel also frowned on the practice whereby the executive arm of government sends to the National Assembly on a yearly basis envelope budgets for approval.
It insisted that the abandonment of the Ajaokuta Steel project through the non-provision of required budgetary votes on a yearly basis was not the best for the country.
Trouble started when the Minister of State in the ministry, Dr Uchechukwu Ogah, said the Federal Government had proposed N23.4bn for the ministry as its 2022 budget estimates.
Ogah said out of the proposal, N10bn was for personnel cost, N1.47bn for overhead and N11bn for capital projects.
Members of the committee decried the meagre budgetary allocation for the solid minerals sector, which they insisted should rank second after oil and gas.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Tanko Al-Makura, condemned the idea of envelope budgeting.
He said, “The yearly ritual called budget is garbage in, garbage out, which will not take the country to anywhere as far as the required diversification is concerned.
“The type of budgeting process being implemented in this country over the years is stereotypical. It is wrong for a budget to be conceptualised in the ministry, enveloped and forwarded to the National Assembly for approval.”
Senator Smart Adeyemi said the economic team of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was clearly out of tune with the reality on the ground as regards what Nigerians needed.
Adeyemi stated, “How on earth would a minister propose N82bn for the procurement of mosquito nets and a sector as important as solid minerals given N10bn or N11bn?
“The Ajaokuta Steel Complex that can give jobs to about 50,000 Nigerians is lying fallow in a country with an army of unemployed youths, who can stage a revolution at any time.
“Nigeria is bleeding from this envelope form of budgeting that is riddled with repetition of line items and allocations on a yearly basis.
“The government may be building infrastructure, but building infrastructure is not as good as creating wealth through the diversification of the economy.
“The best way of doing this is to remove whatever bottleneck that is hindering the continuation of work on the Ajaokuta Steel Complex and get it completed.”
The minister, in his response, said the idea of envelope budgeting was not the creation of the ministry as it affected other government agencies.
He also solicited the intervention of the federal lawmakers to put an end to the envelope budgeting regime.
Ogah said, “My appeal to you distinguished senators on the current model of budgeting is for the National Assembly to seek the attention of the President.
“Operating the envelope system, as far as the yearly budget is concerned, doesn’t make one think out of the box. It makes one looks stupid.
“We have the passion to drive the development of the country and transform into reality the vision of Mr President like other patriotic Nigerians in one public office or the other.”
He added that despite the envelope budgeting and lean resources, the ministry had changed the narrative of low internally generated revenue to very appreciable figures now.
“In the recent past, it used to be N2bn on a yearly basis, but it has increased to N6.2bn now with a target of hitting N10bn by the end of the year,” he added.
Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.
Contact: [email protected]
