Senate Slams FG on Envelope Budgeting, Ajaokuta Steel Project Ignorance

The Senate Committee on Solid Minerals, Mines, Steel Development, and Metallurgy chastised the federal government on Monday for sending envelope budgeting to the National Assembly for approval.

According to the committee, the government talked a lot about economic diversification but only allocated a small amount of money to the solid mineral sector each year.

Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah, Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, told the committee during budget defense that N10 billion of the ministry’s N23.4 billion budgetary allocation in 2022 is for personnel costs, N1.47 billion for overhead costs, and N11 billion for capital projects.

Members of the committee were enraged by the submission and criticized the sector’s low budgetary allocation, which they claimed should be second only to oil and gas.

Senator Tanko Al-Makura (APC Nasarawa), the chairman, stated, “The yearly ritual known as budget is garbage in garbage out, which will not take the country anywhere in terms of diversification.”

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Senator Smart Adeyemi (APC Kogi) said President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic team was clearly out of touch with reality in terms of what Nigerians require.

“How on earth would a minister propose N82 billion for mosquito net procurement while giving N10 or N11 billion to a sector as important as solid minerals?”

“In a country where there is an army of unemployed youths, the Ajaokuta iron and steel complex, which can employ about 50,000 Nigerians, is lying idle.”

“Nigeria is bleeding from this back-of-the-envelope budgeting, which is riddled with yearly repetition of line items and allocations.”

“The best way to do this is to remove whatever bottlenecks are preventing work on the Ajaokuta Steel Complex from continuing and completing it,” he said.

In response, the minister stated that envelope budgeting was not created by the ministry and that it affects other government agencies.