News

Drama as NPC excludes provision for 2024 population census from budget proposal 

 Members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on Tuesday were informed that there was no provision for the scheduled 2024 population and housing census in the budget proposal submitted to the National Assembly for consideration. 

 The Chairman, Senate Committee on National Population Commission, Senator Abdul Ningi informed the lawmakers about the development.

He said this while presenting the budget before the appropriation committee. 

 He informed the committee if the money for the census was not provided in the budget, the country would lose about N200 billion which has been spent by the National Population Commission. 

 He said that the NPC would appear on Wednesday with their documentation of how much they need for the conduct of the 2024 population census. 

 “They will appear tomorrow with proper documentation of how much they need. If we don’t get the money, the nation will lose, the people will lose, the money spent on the preparation for the census will go down the drain and it is a humongous amount of money, over N200 billion already spent; that is my take. “

 Reacting to the development, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation,  Senator Adeola Olamilelan assured  Senator Ningi that  the committee would look for funds to cater for the 2024 population census in the budget. 

 He added that the head of the agency should appear in company of the Committee Chairman to tell them what was needed for the conduct of the census which was scheduled to hold in the first quarter of next year. 

 He said, “Let me assure you that the country will not lose and we are going to work very closely with them to ensure that a 25 percent component is included, we must find a way to accommodate it in this 2024 budget. 

 “We will like the agency to appear along with the Chairman of the Committee, a synopsis of the idea of what is really going on about the issue of census and whatever the issues are, I can assure that we will resolve it and the population census will come up by the first quarter of 2024.”

Back to top button