Senator Abdul Ningi, Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Population Commission (NPC) has disclosed that the NPC’s budget proposal for next year’s census exercise does not include any provisions for funding.
Ningi made the disclosure when he appeared before the National Assembly Joint Committee on Appropriation on Tuesday to submit his panel’s report.
The Senator informed the committee that if the census is not funded in the budget, the country would lose about N200 billion, which had been spent during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration by the National Population Commission to prepare for the exercise.
He added that the NPC is expected to appear before the committee on Wednesday with their documentation to state how much they would need for the conduct of the 2024 population census.
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Ningi said:
“They will appear tomorrow with proper documentation of how much they need. If we don’t get the money, the nation will lose, the people will lose.
“The money spent for the preparation for the census will go down the drain and it is humongous amount of money, over N200 billion already spent that is my take.”
Senator Solomon Adeola, Chairman of the Joint National Assembly Committee on Appropriation on the other hand, told the panel on NPC that the federal parliament would find a way to fund the 2024 population census in the budget.
He said:
“The head of the NPC should appear in company with the Committee Chairman to tell them what was needed for the conduct of census which was scheduled to hold in the first quarter of next year.
“Let me assure you that the country will not loose and we are going to work very closely with them that 25 percent component is included, we must find a way to accommodate it in this 2024 budget.
“We will like the agency to appear along with the Chairman of the Committee, a synopsis of the idea of what is really going on about the issue of census and whatever the issues are, I can assure that we will resolve it and the population census will come up by the first quarter of 2024.”
