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Senate Bemoans Poor Funding For NEPAD, DTCA, IPCR

33 views · Published 8 December 2017 · 18:54 · Indexed 23 October 2026

Channel: Viable Tv · 2017 · News & Politics

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Senate Committee on Cooperation and Integration in Africa /NEPAD has bemoaned the inadequate fund appropriated to some agencies of government charged with crucial tasks of poverty eradication, empowerment and peace building.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator  Stella Odua at a meeting with some of the parastatals including the  Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), NEPAD and National Technical Aids Corps said that agencies are very crucial especially looking at where Nigeria finds itself today, hence the need for them to be adequately funded even as she urged them to remain focused on how to impact more on the citizens.

Senator Odua was responding to complaints by the agencies on the  challenges before them in carrying out their mandates.

The three agencies through their representatives had earlier informed the Senate Committee on how inadequate funding is affecting their performances, adding that they have not received the needed funds from government to fast track and expand their activities.

Abdullahi Suleiman of the Directorate of Cooperation and Integration In Africa (Foreign Affairs Ministry) 
explained that the Technical Aid Corps which is charged with the responsibility of ensuring the repartriation of Nigerian expertriates and ending brain drain in African countries as well as work toward Africa's development and capacity building,  lacks the required finances for  development projects  across the country.

He also enlisted as part of its challenges the issue of not being able to sustain the luxury of most talents willing to be repatriated but who are used to the comfort of their host communities abroad.

Similarly, Abdullahi Ibrahim who represented the Chief Executive Officer of NEPAD, said that the agency which was established to implement all programmes and policies of the Africa Union (AU) at country and regional levels, said it has many projects left untouched due to the non release of fund of enough fund in the 2017 budget.

Also, the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution  mandated to fast-track Africa's integration and offer policy advise fo Africa on issue of peace said that its budgetary provisions are inadequate compared to its scope of work.

”We have not received the needed fund from the government, we believe that the senate will make government understand the relevance of the institute which cuts across capacity building, curtail violence and ensure peaceful coexistence,,  there was however slight improvement in the 2017 budget, but it's still inadequate considering the kind of work we do,” the DG explained.

He added that its early warning stations in the states have so far not been optimized due to lack of fund.

He expressed concern about Nigerian being proactive rather than being preventive in terms of crisis, given the Boko Haram instance where early warning signals were ignored, thus costing the country huge sums of money in the cause of its escalation.

He urged senate to assist it with the needed funding especially to expand its presence across Nigeria.

Senator Odua in her response charged the agencies to anchore all their developmental programmes on areas that will impact on their targets including women and youths if poverty must be eradicated.

She assured that the senate will ensure that it creates enabling laws that will ensure that all agencies operate within it.   "We will promote a motion to streamline the law to give you the teeth to bite when you have to bite.  We need to outline your master plan to know the line of your operations,"

"Currently you are operating operating as an adhoc agency but we need to root you down to operate within the law to be able to harnness all the pockets of projects that have to do with poverty eradication," Odua told NEPAD in particular.

Odua also urged both agencies to expand their scope of funding beyond the normal annual government budget in order to be able to cater for their operations just as she charged NEPAD and IPCR to open up training centers across the nation.

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