National Assembly rejects solid minerals ministry 2025 budget estimates

The National Assembly Joint Committee on Solid Minerals, on Friday, rejected the 2025 budget estimates of the Ministry of Solid Minerals.

The committee said the estimates presented by the ministry were greatly inadequate.

The Chairman of the joint committee, Senator Ekong Sampson, stated this after the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, presented the ministry’s 2025 budget estimate before the committee.

The call for the rejection of the budget followed a motion moved by a Senator from Plateau State, Diket Plang, and seconded by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from Kogi State.

In his presentation, Plang expressed displeasure that the ministry got just N9 billion as an envelope out of the N539.7 billion it proposed for capital expenditure in the 2025 budget.

The chairman faulted the ministry’s budget because of the importance of solid mineral sector to the diversification of the Nigerian economy.

He said: “This is because of the potential in not addressing the key concerns in this sector at a time that Nigeria is in a grand need to diversify the economy.

“The estimates presented before us are grossly inadequate and will not help our economy at this critical period when we have to invest in the future, consistent with what obtains in other economies.

“We’ve taken this position in the interest of this country and as a support item to the vision of government as it were that this budget needs a review.

“The need for this review contemplates the peculiarities in the sector.

“Time has gone by and you have to take a very bold step in exploration, in data gathering, in tackling major drawbacks that have put us in dire situations as a nation richly endowed but faced, as it were with the contradictions in abundance.”

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The co-chairman of the committee, Mr. Gaza Gbefwi, representing Keffi/Karu/Kokona Federal Constituency in Nasarawa State, supported the move for the suspension of the budget defence.

“I move that we suspend this budget screening for the Ministry of Solid Minerals for the fact that what is appropriated to them, if it is true, is beyond imagination.

“Also, we are here to pass a budget not for the ministry, not for us, but for Nigerians and the progress of this country.

“I, therefore, propose that we step down this screening of the budget presented to us and request that we invite the Minister of Planning and Budget to appear before this committee,” he said.

Earlier in his presentation, Alake said the ministry proposed N539.7 billion for capital expenditure and N2 billion for overhead cost in the 2025 budget.

He said: “In contrite distinction to the avowed objective of the economic diversification of Nigeria away from oil into green energy, into harnessing the solid minerals sector, the envelope that the ministry received was a far cry from our proposal.

“We proposed N539.7 billion for capital in 2025, but the envelope that came is a paltry N9 billion.”

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