NCC denies giving N300 million subvention to NITDA

ABUJA, Nigeria – Contrary to wide speculation by an online publication that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) gave N300 million to Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the Commission states unequivocally that this information is mere falsehood, a statement by NCC Management signed by Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Henry Nkemadu, has said.

The statement said in order to put the records straight, no agency of the Federal Government gives subvention to another agency, as 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.

Our budget doesn’t contain any allocation for subvention let alone granting same to a sister agency.

According to Nkemadu, “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.

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He said since the advent of the new administration, the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, has 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.

The Honourable Minister has 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).

Nkemadu, therefore, posited that “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.”

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“Whoever thinks so simply threw caution to the wind by rolling up speculative information that we know nothing about let alone implementing,” he said.

The Director said “we have 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.”