The Interview Editors
The management of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has debunked the report that the Commission gave N300m to Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
According to a statement by NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Henry Nkemadu, the report published by an online publication is merely speculative and false.
Nkemadu noted that no agency of the federal government gives subvention to another agency, because by extant laws of the government, every agency makes its budget and gets approval for appropriation from the National Assembly and such budgets are spent according to the appropriation of the National Assembly.
He stated, “Our budget doesn’t contain any allocation for subvention let alone granting same to a sister agency.
“We cannot create a provision in our budget for another agency to implement. Subventions to all agencies are done by the Federal Government with resources domiciled in the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF). Even salaries to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) come from there.”
According to Nkemadu, NITDA as an agency of government also draws its budget and spends same to execute its own programmes as it deems fit.
He said that since the beginning of the new administration, the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, had always encouraged a working relationship and close synergy between all the parastatals under the purview of the ministry and not cross-funding of any of the parastatals.
He added that the minister had also facilitated support at the highest levels of government to programmes and activities of the Commission, especially in facilitating meetings with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) on issues of Right of Way (RoW) for expanding the telecommunications infrastructure and declaring telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
“We did not receive any directive from the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, on funding any activity of NITDA and no approval was given in that regard.”
“Whoever thinks so simply threw caution to the wind by rolling up speculative information that we know nothing about let alone implementing,” Nkemadu said.
He also emphasised that the NCC had not done any partnership with NITDA to warrant any subvention for capacity building let alone implementing one.
“So, the aspect of creating a budget for subvention is not true,” he added.
