Members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations were shocked on Tuesday when informed that there was no provision for the scheduled 2024 population and housing census in the budget proposal for the National Population Commission.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on National Population Commission, Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP Bauchi Central), informed the lawmakers about the development while presenting a report on the NPC 2024 budget to the collating Committee.
He told the committee that if the money for the census was not provided in the budget, the country would lose about N200bn which the National Population Commission has spent.
He, however, disclosed to the committee that NPC would appear on Wednesday with its documentation on how much they need to conduct the 2024 population census.
Ningi said, “They will appear tomorrow (Wednesday) with proper documentation of how much they need. If we don’t get the money, the nation will lose, the people will lose, the money spent on the preparation for the census will go down the drain and it is a humongous amount of money, over N200 billion already spent that is my take.”
Reacting to the development, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Olamilekan Adeola (APC Ogun West), assured Ningi that the committee would look for funds to cater for the 2024 population census in the budget.
He added that the head of the agency should appear in the company of the committee chairman to tell them what was needed for the conduct of the census which was scheduled to hold in the first quarter of next year.
Adeola said, “Let me assure you that the country will not lose and we are going to work very closely with them that a 25 per cent component is included, we must find a way to accommodate it in this 2024 budget.
“We would like the agency to appear along with the chairman of the committee, with a synopsis of the idea of what is going on about the issue of the census and whatever the issues are, I can assure you that we will resolve it and the population census will come up by the first quarter of 2024.”
