On Thursday, March 5th, 2020 the Nigerian Senate approved N346.3bn budget for the Niger Delta Development Commission for the 2019 fiscal year. Chairman, Committee on NDDC, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, while presenting the budget, said N306,500,900,000 for development projects; N4,083,000,000.00 for internal capital expenditure; N22,338,190,000.00 was for personnel expenditure; and N13,466,810,000.00 for overheads.

Senator Olamilekan Adeola (Lagos West), in his argument said that passing the NDDC budget would create a distortion, owing to the fact that its implementation would expire in May 2020. He suggested that the committee should review its work and submit the 2020 budget for the NDDC to ensure it concides with the January to December budget cycle.

The Senate Leader Yahaya Abdullahi and Senator Ahmed Baba-Kaita of the APC representing Katsina North said that the budget should be passed, because the captured projects in the 2019 fiscal year were rolled over into the 2020 budget subsequently by the committee.

Th Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, asked the committee to roll over the projects captured in the last six months of 2019 into the January to May timeline of the 2020 budget, in order to accommodate a schedule for the omission aligning with Nigeria’s January to December budget cycle.

The committee was given two (2) weeks to submit its report regarding the 2020 budget.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.