NDDC’s 2015 Budget: Jonathan Seek Senate’s Approval Of N299.5b

President Goodluck Jonathan, Tuesday presented the sum of N299.5billion as the 2015 budget of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for consideration and approval.

The amount is N23.1billion lesser than that of 2014 which was N322.6billion.

Jonathan in the letter read at plenary by Senate President, David Mark, said he was acting, pursuant to Section 18 (1) of the NDDC Establishment Act.

He said, “The Commission has submitted a budget proposal of N299, 526,463,156.12 for 2015 as against N322, 600,000,000.00 only in 2014 representing a decline of 7.1 per cent over last year’s budget.”

The proposed budget  according to the President,  is made up of personnel expenditure of N16,133,370.00, recurrent expenditure of N10,423,031,000, Internal capital expenditure of N1,879,076,000.00 and capital projects development expenditure of N271,089,900,000.00 only.

The sources of revenue for the proposed budget, he added, are, revenue brought forward of N10billion;  Federal Government contribution of N70billion; Unpaid arrears by FG of N20billion; and Oil companies contribution and others of N160billion.

Jonathan also explained that the budget would be funded with Ecological fund of N40billion and other internally generated revenue estimated at N100million, amounting to the total sum of N300.1billion.

Meanwhile, the absence of the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Ahmed Maccido, stalled the formal presentation of its report on the 2015 National budget.

Maccido, was not available to present the document when he was invited to do so by the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma – Egba.

This necessitated the postponement of the presentation to the next legislative day.

The Petroleum Industry Bill also suffered setback as the chairman of the Joint Committee on Petroleum (Upstream & Downstream), and Gas Resources, Senator Emmanuel Paulker,  was not also available to present the report before the lawmakers.