Senate flay’s abandonment of Ajaokuta steel project

*Knocks Executive over envelope budget

*As Minister seeks NASS’s intervention

By Haruna Salami

The Senate through its Committee on Solid Minerals , Mine , Steel Development and Metallurgy , frowned at the abandonment of Ajaokuta Iron and Steel Project through non- provision of required budgetary votes on yearly basis

This is as it descended heavily on the executive for forwarding to the National Assembly on yearly basis , envelope budgeting for approval .

Committee members were irked by the proposed N23.4 billion 2022 budget estimates , enveloped for the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development as presented by the Minister of State, Dr Uchechukwu Ogah on Monday at the ongoing 2022 budget defence exercise.

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Standing in for the senior minister, Arch Olamilekan Adegbite , the Minister of State in his presentation , said out of the N23.4 billion budget profile for the Ministry in 2022, N10 billion is for personnel cost , N1.47billion for overhead cost and N11billion for capital projects .

Resenting the presentation , members of the committee, one after the other, decried the meagre budgetary allocation for the sector which according to them, should rank second after the oil and gas sector .

Specifically, the Chairman of the Committee , Senator Tanko Al- Makura (Nasarawa South) said “the yearly ritual called budget is garbage in garbage out, which will not take the country to anywhere as far as required diversification is concerned .

“The type of budgeting process being carried out in this country over the years is stereotypic one . It is wrong for budget to be conceptualised in the ministry, enveloped and forward to the National Assembly for approval”.

Raising the tempo of the anger in his own contribution , Senator Smart Adeyemi (Kogi West) said the economic team of President Muhammadu Buhari is clearly out of tune with realities on ground as regards what Nigerians need .

“How on earth would a minister propose N82 billion for procurement of mosquito nets and a sector as important as the Solid Minerals , given N10 or N11 billion? , he fumed .

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Ajaokutal Steel Complex, ASC that can give jobs to about 50, 000 Nigerians is lying fallow in a country with army of unemployed youths who can stage revolution at any time, he lamented.

“Nigeria is bleeding from this envelope form of budgeting riddled with repetition of line items and allocations on yearly basis.

“Government may be building infrastructure, but building infrastructure is not as good as creating wealth through diversification of the economy.

“The economic team of Buhari needs to be x-rayed to know whether they are competent to hold such position”, he said.

The Kogi west senator called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to investigate the people behind the ordeal of Ajaokuta Steel Company, saying the complex is capable of providing 60, 000 jobs.

“The best way of doing this is to remove whatever bottleneck hindering continuation of work on Ajaokuta Steel Complex and get it completed”, he said .

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However, the Minister in his response said envelope budgeting was not the creation of the ministry as it affects other government agencies .

“My appeal to you distinguished Senators on the current model of budgeting is for the National Assembly to seek the attention of the President.

“Operating with envelope, as far as yearly budget is concerned, doesn’t make one think out of the box. It makes one looks stupid .

“We have the passion to drive the development of the country and transform into reality , the Vision of Mr President like other patriotic Nigerians in one public Office or the other ‘, he said .

He added that even with the envelope budgeting and lean resources, the Ministry has changed the narrative of low internally generated revenue to very appreciable figures now .

“In recent past, it used to be N2 billion on yearly basis but has increased to N6.2 billion now with a target of hitting N10 billion by the end of the year”, he said .

However , as a result of short notice given the Ministry for the budget presentation , the Committee later reschedule Monday next week for detailed defence of 2021 budget implementation and presentation of 2022 budget estimates respectively .