Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Ima Niboro, yesterday openly disowned their 2016 budget estimates.<\/p>\n
While Mohammed queried the N398 million\u00a0\u00a0 meant for the purchase of computers for his ministry, Niboro expressed surprise at the N230million for the purchase of the same item as captured under \u201cCapital Votes\u201d in the 2016 budget of NAN<\/p>\n
Speaking at a budget defence session before the Senate Committe on Information, Mohammed noted that the total sum of N398 million proposed in the budget for the purchase of computers was strange to him.<\/p>\n
Reacting to questions on the N230 million and N168 million voted for the purchase of computers for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Film and Video Censors Board, the minister said he was not aware.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, that is not possible. That was definitely not what was proposed, this cannot be,\u201d the minister protested even as an official of the ministry noted that only N5 million was proposed for the item in the original budget of the NFVCB.<\/p>\n
But the chairman of the Committee, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe said, \u201cThe difference between N5million and N168m is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
A member of the committee, Senator Ben Murray Bruce had also expressed misgivings about the fact that little or no attention was paid to the core functions of the ministry and parastatals under it at a crucial time when Nigeria was at war in the North East.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to ask passionately that they (Ministry\/ parastatals) re-submit their budget, taking care of the North East.<\/p>\n
because people are dying. This is not the question of spending more recklessly, I appeal that the budget be resubmitted, taking care of their needs in the North East; it is very important\u201d, Bruce said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Ima Niboro, yesterday openly disowned their 2016 budget estimates. While Mohammed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n