Akpabio cries out over N23bn capital budget allocation  

The Minster of the Niger Delta Ministry, Godswill Akpabio, at the defence of the allocation to his ministry in the 2020 budget proposal, decried that the capital budget approved for the ministry cannot tar 10 kilometers of road. He, therefore, review for more funds to be allocated to the ministry for capital projects. Akpabio appear to have won the sympathy of the members of the Senate Committee on budget.

The Senate Committee on Niger Delta in evaluating the allocation, rejected the 2020 budget of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs for exempting major ongoing projects in the nine states of the Niger Delta.

The Senate Committee members emphasized that the N23 billion Capital Budget allocated to the Niger Delta Ministry was too small and was designed to fail.

The Senate committee members were said to have also faulted the executive for not releasing money to fund capital projects of the ministry in the 2019 budget.

The Senate Committee members were bitter that despite the outstanding N21 billion projects that were not implemented in the 2019 budget, the executive voted only N23 billion for capital projects by the ministry in the 2020 budget.

The committee, therefore, rejected the budgetary allocation for the ministry and directed that the budget be reviewed presented on Monday.