Barring last minute changes, the 2018 budget will be laid tomorrow, Tuesday, 19th May, 2018 during plenary session, BusinessDay reliably gathered.
Though the Committee on Rules and Business was not in possession of the details of the Notice Paper and Order Paper to ascertain whether the 2018 budget will be listed or not, as at the time of filing this report, but key members of the House Committees on Appropriation and Finance told BusinessDay that the budge will be laid tomorrow.
Chris Azubogu, Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation said: By the grace of God, the budget will be laid tomorrow. We are just icing the cake, but we will work throughout the night to ensure that it comes out.”
On his part, Austin Chukwukwere, House Committee on Finance told our Correspondent that the leadership is in a better position to give the details.
He however noted that the “budget will be laid anytime from now.”
BusinessDay further gathered that the leadership of the House will hold a crucial meeting tonight.
The source however, declined to give details of the agenda for the meeting.
Part of the budget documents seen by BusinessDay showed that the joint Senate and House Committee on Culture and Tourism is pushing for additional sum of N2 billion for nine agencies under the purview of Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in the 2018 budget, without specifying the projects.
They are: Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC); National Commission for Museums and Monuments; National Council for Arts and Culture; Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization; National Troupe of Nigeria; National Theater; National Gallery of Arts; National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism Development Studies and National Institute for Culture Orientation.
However, the breakdown of the budget of NTDC showed that the reduction of N29 million from recurrent expenditure and N17 million from overhead costs; N9 million from Miscellaneous as well as N6 million from capital expenditure; reduction of N50 million construction/provision of recreational facilities.
From the total sum of N189,102,558 proposed for the hosting of UNWTO-CAF Conference, the joint Committee on Culture and Tourism reduced it to N169,102,558 (representing N20 million reduction).
However, the budget for Federal Ministry of Information and Culture was reduced from N6,665,005,666 to N5,998,005,646 representing N670,000,000 reduction.
Total sum of N220 million was removed from the sum of N660.507 million proposed for recurrent expenditure, out of which N20 million is for office stationeries/computer consumables; N5 million for maintenance of office building/residential quarters and N5 million for maintenance of office/IT equipment; N60 million for publicity and advertisements; N20 million for welfare package.
However, the agency’s capital project was increased by N34 million for research and development budget line.
On the other hand, the joint committee also slashed the capital expenditure by N450 million from the proposed sum of N1,919,966,941 for acquisition of non tangible assets; reduced N20 million from the total sum of N337,548,066 for Anniversary/Celebrations; reduced N480 million from total sum of N1,488,464,621 proposed for governance/institutional reform.
Other reductions effected by the joint committee are: reduction of N100 million from the proposed N283.654 million for special project on creative industries, film, music, TV, photography, tourism and fashion; reduction of N230 million from the N736.782 million for campaign for govwernmet policies and programmes e.g ERGP-IP, Executive Orders, etc; reduction of N150 million from the N468.028 million proposed for town hall meetings, national opinion poll and production of TV documentaries.
According to the joint committee’s covering letter dated 18th April, 2018 with Ref. No: NASS/8HR/CT.24/VOL.2/008 co-signed by Senator Fatimat Raji-Rasaki and Ogbeide-Ihama Omoregie, the request for additional sum of N2 billion was due to inadequate budgetary provisions for the development of the sector.
The joint committee’s letter to the Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriation read in part: “Nigeria is blessed with different tourist attractions all around the six geopolitical zones which if adequately developed can attract more visitors thereby generating foreign exchange, employment and foreign direct investments.
“However, with inadequate budgetary provisions for the development of this sector of the economy, our vision to make tourism a major income earned to the government remains a mirage.
“In view of the aforementioned facts therefore, the Committee of Culture and Tourism of the Senate and House of Representatives jointly seek for more money in the 2018 budget for the following agencies to develop their various abandoned projects and potential tourist sites all over the country,” the two-page letter read.
KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja
