2024 Census Not Included in NPC Budget – Senate Committee

The budget plan for the National Population Commission did not include any funding for the anticipated 2024 population and housing census, 

This was revealed by the Chairman, Senate Committee on National Population Commission, Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP Bauchi Central), on Tuesday while presenting a report on the NPC 2024 budget to the collating Committee.

Members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations were astonished at the revelation. The chairman stated further that if the money for the census was not provided in the budget, the country would lose about N200bn which the National Population Commission has spent.

But he did let the committee know that NPC would be presenting its documents on Wednesday, along with the amount needed to carry out the 2024 population census.

Ningi said, “They will appear tomorrow (Wednesday) with proper documentation of how much they need. If we don’t get the money, the nation will lose, the people will lose, the money spent on the preparation for the census will go down the drain and it is a humongous amount of money, over N200 billion already spent that is my take.”

In response to the matters, Senator Olamilekan Adeola (APC Ogun West), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, assured Ningi that the committee would search the budget for money to cover the 2024 population census.

He went on to say that the chairman of the committee should be accompanied by the director of the agency to inform them of the necessary preparations for the upcoming census, which is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2019.

Speaking further,  Adeola said, “Let me assure you that the country will not lose and we are going to work very closely with them that a 25 percent component is included, we must find a way to accommodate it in this 2024 budget.

“We would like the agency to appear along with the chairman of the committee, with a synopsis of the idea of what is going on about the issue of the census and whatever the issues are, I can assure you that we will resolve it and the population census will come up by the first quarter of 2024.”