The National Assembly has kicked against the zero allocation given to the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) capital expenditures proposal for the year 2022, even as the lawmakers insisted on giving the agency a capital vote.
Amidst expectations that the NIPOST will be unbundled next year, the agency was slammed a zero allocation from N137.2billion capital votes earmarked for the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy and its parastatals.
The ministry, in its proposed budget for 2022, got an appropriation of N160.593billion budget, NIGCOMSAT, NIPOST and National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
While the ministry got N85.231billion for capital votes, NIMC got N46.533billion and NIGCOMSAT N5.440billion, leaving NIPOST with only overhead and personnel costs.
The Joint Committee of the National Assembly on Communications gave the information, yesterday, during budget defence session it had with the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Pantami and heads of agencies under the ministry at the National Assembly.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Oluremi Tinubu expressed disappointment over the development, and said it was wrong for the agency not to be given any capital vote for 2022 fiscal year.
Tinubu specifically asked the minister whether the zero capital budget allocation proposed for NIPOST in 2022 was based on non-request by the agency or lack of funds.
The committee, she added, may have to appropriate something for the agency, if there was no solid reason for the zero allocation.
In his response, Pantami said, he was not against some votes taken from the capital estimates of the ministry for NIPOST, as he pointed out that the unbundling of the agency into three separate bodies would be done in 2022.
He said: “I’m not against the committee taking about N200million from N85.231billion capital vote of the ministry to NIPOST”.
According to Pantami, the unbundling of NIPOST in 2022 will give birth to three different agencies which will include a Property Development Company that will manage the 2,500 properties of the agency located across the country.
Responding to questions on the increase observed in the personnel cost of the ministry which rose from N981million appropriated in 2020 to N1.032billion proposed for 2022 fiscal year, the minister said the increase arose from salaries of newly recruited staff posted to the ministry by the Federal Civil Service Commission.
The ministry’s recurrent expenditure proposal of N160.593billion has a total of N86.488billion for the ministry, N8.226billion for NIGCOMSAT, N13.116billion for
