By Paul Effiong, Abuja
Members of the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Regional Development yesterday queried the Minister of Regional Development, Abubakar Momoh, over alleged lopsidedness in the ministry’s budget.
The committee issued the query when the minister, alongside the Minister of State, Uba Maigari, appeared before lawmakers at the National Assembly to defend their 2024 budget performance and the 2025 proposal.
The lawmakers informed that the ninistry’s budget favoured only Edo State over other states, adding that such development is not healthy for the country, as the projects are supposed to cover the entire Niger Delta states.
The minister was also queried for not adhering to federal character principle in situating projects of the defunct ministry (formerly Ministry of Niger Delta).
The joint committee also condemned the location of over 70 percent of the ministry’s projects for 2024, maintaining that all are domiciled in Edo State.
To this end, a member of the committee, Matthew Nwogu questioned the minister on why 70 percent of the projects for 2024 were located in Edo State.
Earlier, while presenting the 2024 budget performance, the minister told the committee that out of the N20 billion allocated to the ministry in 2024 for capital budget, N2 billion was provided for zonal intervention to the House Leader, Professor Julius Ihonvbere, who is from Edo State.
The minister told the committee that the ministry’s total budget proposal for 2025 was N28.9 billion comprising N24 billion for capital projects; N2.7 billion for personnel cost and N1.6 billion for recurrent expenditure.
