Dr. Betta Edu who is the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, has lamented her ministry’s 2024 budgetary allocation, stressing that it is inadequate to combat poverty in the country.
Edu made this assertion on Tuesday when she led officials of her ministry and parastatals under it to defend her 2024 budget before the Joint National Assembly Committee of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation chaired by Senator Idiat Adebule.
According to her, the ministry was given an overhead ceiling of N532.5bn which represents a 28 per cent increase over the 2023 budget to cushion the effects of inflation.
Read Also: ‘How Naira Redesign, Insecurity Pushed Farmers Into Poverty’
‘It is pertinent to note that the 28 percent increase in the overhead ceiling is not commensurate to the 27.33 percent inflationary rate in the economy today,’ she stated.
‘It is pertinent to note that the 28 percent increase in the overhead ceiling is not commensurate to the 27.33 percent inflationary rate in the economy today.
‘Conversely, the capital budget ceiling was reduced from N3.7bn in 2022 to N1.328316bn in 2023 and it represents a 71 percent reduction.
‘So, in 2022 and 2023 there was a 71% reduction. However, the pittance capital ceiling of N1.535b which is an increase from the current year’s budget does not in any way match with the mandate of the ministry’s headquarters to shrink poverty in Nigeria.
‘Simply put, there was an over 71% reduction between 2022 and 2023 so the minimal increase between 2023 and 2024 does not in any way match with the mandate which we have been given and what is expected of us.’
‘Except the budget is appropriate for it, we would be completely unable to meet that mandate,’ she added.
The Federal Government had earlier asserted that the naira redesign policy which was carried out by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) implemented between 15th of December, 2022, and February this year forced many farmers in the country into bankruptcy.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that the redesigning of the naira was initiated by a former governor of the apex bank, Godwin Emefiele, and was being implemented nationwide until the Supreme Court stopped it through a ruling.
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, stated this on Monday in Abuja when he appeared before the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives on Agriculture to defend the ministry’s 2024 budget proposals.