2023 budget: ActionAid tasks NASS on poverty reduction programmes

The Board of Trustees of ActionAid Nigeria has tasked the National Assembly with the need to make adequate budgetary allocations for programmes and policies geared toward reducing the scourge of poverty and inequality across the country.

The position of the ActionAid Board of Trustees was contained in a communique signed by its Chairperson, Dr Jummai Umar-Ajijola, at the end of its 48th meeting held in Abuja after the review of the state of the nation and national development, where the Board further harped on the engage non-political and non-partisan economic experts in the bid to achieve the feat.

The reports of the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations are expected to be laid both chambers, and considered on or before Wednesday, 14th December, 2022 and passed through Third Reading before embarking on Christmas and New Year recess.

Some of the issues considered during the meeting include: World Bank’s grim prediction of 95.1 million Nigerians hitting the poverty line by the end of 2022, the destruction, and severe losses that families, states, and the nation experienced from the flooding will hasten the realization of this figure; ravaging flood, security, strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), among others.

“The National Assembly in its approval and appropriation processes must factor in the prevailing economic realities, as such the amendments of macroeconomic assumptions should not simply target increasing the envelope on government spending but targeting the actual measures to reduce poverty and inequality.

“ActionAid Nigeria’s Board of Trustees also recommends that the National Assembly should begin to consider engaging non-political and non-partisan economic experts’ opinions in such approval processes.

“Similarly, a well thought-out and sustainable plan must be deployed immediately to finally address the hydra-headed petrol subsidy issue to free up more resources to address Nigeria’s multi-dimensional poverty.

“Youths and women constitute the larger percentage of the population. Hence, political parties must adequately include them in leadership and decision-making processes including strategic appointive and elective positions.

“Since the main source of revenue to the Nigerian Government is oil and gas, Federal Government must plug crude oil theft. The NNPC must collaborate with other security apparatuses and relevant agencies to put in place technology-driven proactive measures to curb the unabated incidences of pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft for Nigeria to meet her crude oil production quota.

“Earnings from oil exploration must also be purposefully dedicated for the diversification of the economy.In conclusion, as the electioneering campaigns continue across the country, Nigerians are enjoined to utilise these opportunities to critically interrogate the political parties’ manifestoes and their electoral promises.

“Now is the time to interrogate their offers and how they will be practically delivered at the different levels of government.”

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