By Miracle Ogunde
The Minister of Regional Development, Abubakar Momoh, has been queried by the national Assembly over alleged lopsidedness in the ministry’s 2024 budget.
The National Assembly Joint Committee on Regional Development queried the minister on Tuesday when he appeared before the committee with the Minister of State, Uba Maigari, to defend the 2024 budget performance and make projections for 2025.
Members of the committee accused Momoh of favouring his home state, Edo, over other states that make up the Niger Delta region.,
Punch reports that the lawmakers queried Momoh for non-adherence to the federal character principle in the allocation of projects of the defunct Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.
They noted that 70 per cent of the ministry’s projects for 2024 were domiciled in Edo State.
A member of the House of Representatives, Matthew Nwogu, urged the minister to justify why 70 per cent of the projects for 2024 were located in Edo State.
“Mr Minister, tell us why most of these 2024 budgets (projects) are situated in Edo State,” Nwogu said.
The lawmaker wondered why other states under the ministry were excluded while the bulk of the projects went to Momoh’s state.
Similarly, a member of the House, Chinedu Ogar, asked the same question, saying, “Honourable minister, I am happy that you are a product of the National Assembly. My constituents are not happy with this your budget because it negates the constitutional principle of federal character. About 70 per cent of your projects are located in Edo state. Why?”
Chairman, House Committee on Regional Development, Eugene Okechukwu, moved that the minister be allowed to answer the questions in an executive session.
The committee dissolved into an executive session to interface with the minister on the matter.
Earlier, while presenting the 2024 budget performance, the minister told the members that out of the N20bn allocated to the ministry in 2024 for the capital budget, N2bn was provided for zonal intervention in the ministry’s budget by the House Leader, Prof Julius Ihonvbere, who is from Edo State.
The minister told the committee that the ministry’s total budget proposal for 2025 was N28.9bn made up of N24bn for capital projects; N2.7bn for personnel cost and N1.6bn for recurrent expenditure.
The minister lamented that the amount earmarked for the Ministry of Regional Development to address the development needs of the five development commissions is inadequate.
He appealed to the joint committee to intervene in order to ensure that budgetary allocation for 2025 is upwardly reviewed.
Momoh added that due to poor budgetary allocation, the ministry had been unable to complete some projects critical to the development of the region.
He said, “The 2024 budget of the ministry was a budget for the Ministry for Niger Delta Development. Accordingly, the sum of N20.16bn was allocated for capital expenditure, N1.13bn was for overhead and N2.01bn for personnel.
“It is important to note that out of the N20bn allocated for capital expenditure, the ministry’s envelope was about N18bn while about N2bn was provision to the Leader of the House for his zonal intervention projects.
“For the releases so far, only N1.8bn has been released for capital, while overhead is N1.1bn, while in respect to personnel, all the staff have been paid. The performance in relation to the releases is N100 per cent.”
He explained that the 2024 budgetary allocation of N23.34bn by the ministry was considered very meagre to meet the developmental needs of the region.
He added that inadequate funding and dwindling budgetary allocation has over the years led to a plethora of abandoned projects.
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