The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, yesterday advocated a greater budgetary provision for his Ministry.
He said this at the 2025 budget defense of the proposed total capital budget of N11,770,533,003 before the joint committee of the Senate on Marine Transport and House of Representatives Committee on Harbour, Maritime Education and Administration, Inland Waterways and Shipping Service.
Oyetola in his address said the quantum investment through the capital budget was necessary for the Ministry to deliver on its lofty mandate and potential
To this end, he noted that the overhead of N453,856,327 though inadequate was for the committee’s consideration.
“For clarity, I wish to state that three of the agencies under the Ministry, namely: NPA, NIMASA, and NSC, are fully self-funding and make significant remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF/TSA), the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron derives their funding from both the FGN Budget and Internally Generated Revenue.
“The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) based on my passionate plea has been readmitted into the budget for funding albeit and erroneously under the Federal Ministry of Transport. I trust that you will rectify this.”
Oyetola noted that the five agencies under the Fisheries and Aquaculture sector (Institutes and Colleges) were expected to come fully under the Ministry in the 2025 Budget and sought also the cooperation of the Joint Committees on it. “The total capital appropriation for the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy in 2024 Budget is N10,848,512,984.
“The sum of N9,973,802,613 has been utilised/committed at the end of December 2024, remaining a balance of N874,710,371.
This will be expended in the 19 Quarter of 2025.”
This Day