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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said he does not know what to do with the N345million allocated to the ministry as capital budget in the 2023 Appropriation Bill.
Mohammed stated this, yesterday, when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Information and Orientation for the defence of his ministry’s 2023 budget estimates appealing to lawmakers for their intervention.
He said the ministry was doing much to publicise government programmes and to tackle the menace of fake news, saying more funds were required for capital budget in 2023, especially as the country heads for the polls with population census also slated for next year.
“I want to draw the House attention to the fact that the Ministry of Information has been dealt a very heavy card in this year’s budgetary allocation. In 2022 the National Assembly approved N2.5 billion for this ministry, as capital, of which N1billion belonged to information. This year, the capital provision for the entire Ministry of Information and Culture is N869 million, of which only N345 million is for information.
“Please this House should do whatever they can, this N345 million capital expenditure I don’t know where to start because if you expect so much from us, the least you can do for us is to provide the tools,” he said.
Chairman of the committee, Segun Odebunmi, said the committee agreed with Mohammed that the capital budget proposal of the ministry was meagre, but said minister should have argued for an increase at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) where the appropriation bill emanated.
