Budget: Akume laments allocation of N180 billion to Special Duties ministry in 2023

The Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, George Akume, has told lawmakers of the National Assembly that his ministry needs more money to function properly.

He said the N180 billion allocated to the ministry for the 2023 fiscal year represents a 71 per cent reduction in the 2022 budget – the allocation he termed as grossly inadequate.

He said this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Special Duties to defend the ministry’s budget for 2023 on Tuesday.

He also lamented that the current allocations and envelope system make it extremely difficult for the ministry to function effectively.

Mr Akume is one of many heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to complain about the budget cuts for MDAs in the 2023 budget.

Ministers of Information and Works, Lai Mohammed and Babatunde Fashola, among others had made similar complaints.

Mr Mohammed told the panel that the lack of funds has affected the ministry’s ability to drive the National Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy – a presidential initiative aimed at pulling 100 million citizens out of poverty.

The initiative, which he said can generate millions of direct employment opportunities for farmers in the cottage industry and others in the value chain, cannot be properly executed because of money.

He also blamed the ministry’s inability to monitor special projects and interventions of the federal government and implementation of constituency projects, on the paucity of funds.

Even the simple task of establishing a common platform for local government chairmen and special duties officials for collaborations and having a central dashboard to monitor projects have proved difficult to achieve, he added.

Lawmakers back Akume

While he sympathised with the minister, a member of the committee, Elisha Abbo, (APC, Adamawa North), said the paucity of funds appears to be a deliberate ploy to render the ministry incapacitated to carry out its role to monitor special projects in the country and demand accountability from erring contractors and deny Nigerians the benefits of projects to which millions of Naira are appropriated for yearly.

The lawmaker wondered why the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management got higher budgetary allocations than the ministries of Trade and Investments, Health and Education put together.

He called on the minister to assert his authority more if he hopes to achieve anything and leaves his footprints in the sands of time.

“I think you’re too gentle,” he said. “I also think this ministry is being deliberately incapacitated. I do not see how you hope to achieve the ministry’s mandate to coordinate agencies and constituency projects as well as special projects and initiatives starved of funds.

“If anyone wants to achieve anything in our system, that person must have some element of “madness.”

Other lawmakers including the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Special Duties, Yusuf Yusuf, supported the minister’s request for more funds.