Members of Senate Committee on Appropriations were shocked on Tuesday when informed that there was no provision for scheduled 2024 population and housing cencus in the budget proposal for the National Population Commission (NPC).
The Chairman, Senate Committee on National Population Commission, Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP Bauchi Central), informed the lawmakers about the development while presenting report on NPC 2024 budget to the Committee.
He told the committee that 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.
He however, disclosed to the committee that NPC would appear later with their documentations on how much they need for the conduct of 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 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”, he said.
Reacting to the development, the Chairman of Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Olamilekan Adeola (APC Ogun West) , assured Senator Ningi that the committee would look for fund to cater for the 2024 population census in the budget.
He added that 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.
He said, “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.”
