Information ministry earmarks N6.8bn for 2018

THE Ministry of Information and Culture said it had proposed N6.8 billion for its activities in 2018.

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, made this known while defending the ministry’s budget before the member of House of Representatives Committee on Information on Tuesday in Abuja.

He said N880 million was earmarked for overhead and N1.30 billion for capital expenditure of the information arm of the ministry.
Mohammed said that N3.2 billion was appropriated for personnel cost during the period.

He said that in 2017, a total of N1.8 billion was appropriated for the ministry, but he could not provide the breakdown of the budget performance to the dissatisfaction of the lawmakers.

The committee demanded that a detailed breakdown of the 2017 budget, including releases and performance, should be provided before further deliberations on the 2018 budget at a later date.

Earlier, Chairman of the committee, Rep. Odebunmi Olusegun (Oyo-PDP) had recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari, in obedience to the Constitution, presented the 2018 budget to the National Assembly on Nov. 7, 2017.
He said that in line with the Constitution, the assembly was committed to ensuring a people-oriented budget that would meet their yearning and aspirations.

The legislator said that the agencies under the ministry were meant to be on top of their games in ensuring proper and timely dissemination of information as regards government activities.
He said that lack of enough funding was hampering the performance of the agencies, making them “live on past glory’’.

Olusegun said that during the committee’s 2017 budget performance oversight function, it was discovered that most agencies were operating with obsolete equipment.
He, however, said that the manner available funds were managed required proper scrutiny to ensure transparency and accountability.