The Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Communications, ICT and Cybercrimes has approved N39.3 billion budget proposal for the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy for 2021 fiscal year.
The Committee gave the approval Monday when the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami appeared before it for the defense of the 2021 budget.
Addressing the lawmakers, Pantami stated that the ICT contributed 17.83% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2020 up from 13% achieved by previous administrations.
He disclosed that sector’s priorities include plans for completion of 70% access to Broadband connectivity by 2025 from the present 41.27%; execution plan to deploy 4G backbone across the country; digitize all government functions and processes by 2023 (e-governance).
Other are to develop and implement digital economy strategy; support implementation of digital identity programme; improve supervision and optimize revenues from all operators and licenses in agencies under the Ministry’s supervision.
Ibrahim Oloriegbe (Senator) in his intervention, frowned at the failure of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) which spend multi-billion naira on annual basis for acquisition of ICT services, instead of the public owned Galaxy Backbone.
The Chairman, House Committee on Telecommunications, Akeem Adeyemi who noted that effective deployment of ICT would enhance productivity in virtually all human endeavours, called on the Ministry to tell the legislature its plans towards the establishment of the ICT University of Nigeria; Smart City Project; ICT Hub Centres and ICT Parks which are components of the National ICT Road Maps.
He said: “It is our belief that if Nigeria must realize the full benefits that accrues to the country from digital economy, the ICT sector in Nigeria, spearheaded by the Ministry must sufficiently promote the utilization of ICT infrastructure and participation in the ICT economy by Nigerians with a view to using same to promote good governance and digital service delivery in the country.
“With the current high level of development and deployment of ICT worldwide, it is expected that Nigeria, at the moment, should be able to tap into the capabilities of digital technology to proffer digital solutions not only to insecurity of lives and properties, but to other social and economic endeavours of Nigerians.
Adeyemi demanded explanation on the “noticeable disparities between total approvals and total releases in the 2020 budget in which total amount released for the 1st and 2nd Quarters are much higher than actual approvals”,
He also queried the utilization of multi-billion naira released so far for the implementation of a number of projects, which “are still either awaiting BPP approval or the procurement process is ongoing.
“Can the Honourable Minister guarantee this Joint Committee that projects in these categories would be executed before the expiration of the current fiscal year?”
Responding, the Minister said: “Firstly, some of the issues raised like in paragraph 4, number 1, about the position of ICT University establishing smart city and ICT parks. On the issue of ICT University, I think the issue came up before I was appointed minister, it was part of 2017/2018 deliberations, based on information available to the office of Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, that proposal was not approved by the Federal Executive Council chaired by Mr. President.
“I think the main issue at that time, other stakeholders were not involved in the process. For example, Minister of Education and National University Commission (NUC) were not accommodated in the process. So during deliberation when the Ministry of Education disclosed that they were not accommodated, the FEC then didn’t approve it.
“Secondly today, maybe we don’t give it the priority, our major challenge in the country, ICT sector, is not just about you establishing a university but what is more important is providing digital skills to our citizens. Many developed and developing nations are reducing the number of their universities. In China they announced that they are in the process of converting 600 universities to skills centre.
“Most of our graduates today lack the skills required, they only focus more on getting certificates. They only focus on theory, and when you employ them, you need to train them all through because the skills are not there. Now it’s because of this that focus of the world is not on certificate but skills. This committee will agree with me that one of the major challenge confronting all of is the issue of our constituency disturbing us with recruitment. Many graduates do not have appointments and the vacancies are not enough.
On the questions raised by the Chairman, House Committee on Telecommunications regarding why certain projects were not included in the 2021 budget proposal, Pantami said: “it’s because our main target now is to focus more on providing skills for our citizens and there’s one very important benefit we can drive from that.
‘’If we provide enough skills for our citizens, we will be producing more potential employers and entrepreneurs. But when we focus more on universities we will be producing potential employees. So it’s because to reduce the burden of unemployment, we focus more on producing digital innovators and entrepreneurs.”
The 2020 budget performance submitted to the joint Committees have disparities which showed that out of total sum of N13.858,200 released for local travels and transport and others, the Ministry spent N13,900,800; out of N2,803,032.52 released for office stationaries/computer consumables, the Ministry utilized N7,683,520; out of N1,100,000 released for printing of non-security documents, the ministry utilized N1,702,000; out of N2,630,000 released for maintenance of office building/residential quarters, the Ministry utilized N4,532,145; out of N3,479,000 released for maintenance of office/IT equipments, the Ministry utilized N5,062,638; out of N4,015,526.58 released for publicity and advertisements, the Ministry utilized N4,027,301.58.
While examining the 2021 budget proposal, Adeyemi sought justification for the N21.9 billion increase between the total budget proposal for the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.
Answering a question on the sum of N21.9 million differentials between the 2020 and 2021 budgets, the Minister said: “Regarding 2021 budget proposal, the variation and why the amount is higher than the previous year, it’s to accommodate the proposal of NIMC, that’s the major variation there, their budget now is part of our own and if you at their salary it’s over N5 billion and I think that could be the reason.”
Pantami stated that the sum of N2 billion revenue was projected from sale of forms, spectrum licenses, renewal fees and other sources in 2021 budget.
