Nigerian Legislators have frowned at the zero allocation to the country’s Postal Service NIPOST from the N137.2billion capital votes earmarked for the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy.
The NIPOST position was confirmed on Thursday by the joint committee of the National Assembly on Communication, during the 2022 budget defence session with the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami and heads of agencies under the Ministry.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Oluremi Tinubu who expressed dissatisfaction with the zero capital vote’s allocation for NIPOST, said it was wrong for the agency not to be given any capital vote for 2022 fiscal year.
Senator Tinubu added that the committee may have to appropriate some fund for NIPOST if there is no solid reason for the zero capital allocation.
The Minister however assured the Lawmakers that he was not against some votes taken from the capital estimates of the Ministry for NIPOST.
According to him, “I’m not against the Committee taking about N200million from N85.231billion capital vote of the Ministry to NIPOST”, he said.
Dr. Patani added that unbundling of NIPOST will be carried out in 2022 by creating three different agencies out of it, including a Property and Development Company that will manage the 2,500 properties of the agency scattered across Nigeria.
A summary of the budget profile of N160.593billion proposed for the Ministry and the three agencies under it, shows that the Ministry has a total of N86.488billion, NIGCOMSAT N8.226billion, NIPOST N13.116billion and NIMC N52.761billion.
Dominica Nwabufo
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