The Senate on Tuesday rejected meagre allocations proposed for the Ministry of Information and National Orientation in the N27.5 trillion 2024 budget presented to the joint sitting of the National Assembly by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The Senate Committee on Information is chaired by Senator Kenneth Eze.
The committee expressed dissatisfaction when the Minister of Information, Alhaji Mohammed Idris appeared to make his presentation.
The Minister had in his presentation before the committee informed the senators that national values and attitudes re-orientation campaign under the aegis of National Values Charter (NVC), would be launched in early 2024.
He said, “It is the desire of the ministry to have a big national conversation around our values and attitudes re-orientation, so that Nigeria will at least rediscover its self and reclaim some of those values that have been eroded over the years, so that we can have a better country for all of us.
“We also desire to launch the National and International branding campaign for Nigeria to highlight and showcase Nigeria’s immense natural and cultural resources.
“We are also going to convene and coordinate a regular series of press briefings and media engagements for cabinet members and other senior government officials to avail Nigerians of what various ministries and agencies are doing so that Nigerians will be carried along on what and what are the projects and programmes of government .
“We also intend to invest resources in modernising the Federal Government information and communication management and regulatory system across the agencies, for example, NAN, NTA , FRCN etc ‘, he said .
He however added that the N1billion earmarked for the Ministry as capital expenditure in 2024 would not be anyway sufficient for implementation of the programmes.
Apparently impressed by the aforestated visions, the committee chaired by Senator Kenneth Eze (APC Ebonyi Central), said provisions in the 2024 budget were nothing to write home about for implementing such laudable visions.
The Chairman said,”This is not a budget that can be feasible if we are telling our story as a country , there is no way we can go far, you have a great initiative on how you are going to transform the country in area of information, I wonder how you are going to do that with this so little fund.
“Information is a very sensitive ministry that should be taken seriously, and funded, and if we are talking about Renewed Hope agenda that we want as a country, information should be at the forefront, it should be the image maker, to sensitise the people, there is a widening gap between the government and information has to bridge this gap.
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“I looked around in the budget, I didn’t see Nigeria Press Council, and APCON and other agencies, is the government telling us that the agencies have been scraped, that they can function without personnel? Who will pay their salary? and just few months ago, the DG and Executive Secretary were appointed.
” Hon Minister, this is a serious matter for the committee to look into and we shall surely do that “.
