Senate approves N315.81b for NDDC

The Senate Thursday approved the sum of N315, 805, 990,000 as the 2013 budget of Niger Delta Development Commission.

This follows the adoption of the report by Senate Committee on Niger Delta which scrutinized the NDDC fiscal policy.

The amount represented the exact budget the federal government presented to the National Assembly for approval.

Breakdown of the budget showed that personnel expenditure is to gulp N14.929 billion, overhead expenditure N9.040 billion, capital expenditure (internal) N2.377 billion while projects (development) expenditure is to take over N289.459 billion.

Further breakdown shows that revenue brought forward N67 billion, federal government contribution N61.347 billion, Federal Government contribution (Excess crude arrears) N50 billion, Oil companies contribution and others N125 billion, Ecological funds N12.158 billion and other internally realized income N300 million.

The committee said that it considered the proposal and noted that the non-project expenditure totaling N26,346,251,148.00 represented 8.34 per cent of the total proposed budget for the year as against 7.5 per cent in 2012.

The increase in percentage, the committee said, is largely due to increase in the staff strength arising from the re-absorption of staff of the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) into the NDDC.

Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu underscored the need for the NDDC budget to be bought early to the National Assembly for approval adding that early approval of the budget is the only way  to serve the people of Niger Delta and indeed Nigerians better.