JUSTIFY YOUR DEMANDS FOR INCREASE IN BUDGETARY ALLOCATION THROUGH YOUR PERFORMANCE, REPS TELLS AGENCIES 17-01-25
By Sadiq Aminu The House of Representatives has charged agencies to justify their demands for increased Budgetary Allocation for their agencies with their performance in the previous Budgetary Allocation.
The House Committee on FEDERAL POLYTECHNICS and HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION gave the charge during 2025 budget Defence by National Board for Technical Education, NBTE and Federal Polytechnics.
The Chairman of the Committee Fuad Kayode Laguda, maintained that, performance was key to progress and should be used to justify demands for more funds by agencies in 2025 budget.
Mr. Laguda reiterated that, there was need for government agencies to judiciously utilize resources available to them before asking for more as their performance should determine why more resources should be allocated to them.
“Performance is very key. And that is what will help us move forward in 2025. It is an acceptable and known fact that THE POLYTECHNICS ARE poorly funded. We know. But we need to justify our need for more and show why we need more. To be honest with ourselves, have we been able to do that? That is what we should answer”
Mr. Laguda, emphasized that NBTE, as a body is very crucial in the area of technical education, hence, adequate funding for the agency will go along way in ensuring that technical education institutions are positioned to provide Nigeria with needed expertise and workforce to drive innovation and development.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary NBTE, Professor Idris Bugaje had while presenting an overview of the agencies 2024 budget performance and the 2025 proposed estimates called for an increase of its budgetary allocation to recruit more personnel in order to supervise the activities of over 700 Polytechnics and other institutions across the country.
According to Professor Bugaje, operations of the agency are being hampered by inadequate manpower to carry out its mandate as such, there is need to have more staff to do the job.