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HomeUncategorizedWe did not give NITDA N300 million NCC debunks claims

We did not give NITDA N300 million NCC debunks claims

The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has said that the wide
speculation by an online publication that it gave N300 million to
Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), was fake
news.

The Commission stated unequivocally that the information was mere falsehood.

This was contained in a statement to newsmen on Saturday by NCC
Management signed by the Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Henry Nkemadu.

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,” the agency maintained.

“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,” it added.

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 since the advent of the new administration, the 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.

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

He added that, “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.”

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