N’Assembly rejects solid mineral ministry’s 2025 budget

N’Assembly rejects solid mineral ministry’s 2025 budget

By Fly Cable News

The National Assembly joint committee on Solid Minerals, on Friday, rejected the budget estimates of the Ministry of Solid Minerals.

The committee said that the estimates presented were greatly inadequate.

The Chairman of the joint committee, Sen. Ekong Sampson, stated this after the minister, 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 Sen. Diket Plang (APC-Plateau) and seconded by Sen. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan (PDP-Kogi).

Moving the motion, Plang expressed displeasure that the ministry got just N9bn as an envelope out of the N539.7bn it proposed for capital expenditure in the 2025 budget.

The chairman also expressed displeasure over 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.