Members of Senate Committee on Appropriations on Tuesday were informed that there was no provision for 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 while presenting the budget of its committee before the Appropriations Committee.
He informed the committee if the money for the census was not provided in the budget the country would loose about N200 billion which has been spent by the National Population Commission for preparation.
He said that the NPC would appear tomorrow with their documentations on how much they need for the conduct of 2024 population census.
“They will appear tomorrow with proper documentations of how much they need. If we don’t get the money, the nation will loose, the people will loose, the money spent for the preparation for the census will go down the drain and it is homogus amount of money, over N200 billion already spent that is my take”, Ningi said.
Reacting to the development, the Chairman of Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senator Adeola Olamilelan assured Senator Ningi that the committee would look for fund 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 census which was scheduled to hold in the first quarter of next year.
“Let me assure you that the country will not loose and we are going to work very closely with them that 25 percent component is included, we must find away 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”, Olamilekan said.
By Haruna Salami
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