The Ministry of Transportation has proposed the total sum of N205,161,882,492 as budget for the year 2021.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, made the disclosure at the presentation of the ministry’s 2021 appropriation before the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Land and Marine Transport.
According to the minister, out of the tital sum of N205 billion, land transport has N204billion, while Marine transport has a total of N845 million.
He said overhead cost during the year 2021 will get N358m.
“The total Capital Appropriation of the ministry for 2020 is N70,365,081,808, Land has N69,667,177,564, Marine N697,904,244 out of which N36,018,702,122 representing 51.49 percent has been released to date with Land having N35,928,905,544.77 and Marine with N89,796,577.50 has been utilized as at November 2, 2020.
“In addition, the sum of N245,494,182.42 was appropriated for overhead expenditure out of which N176,926,909.26 was released, the sum of N157,956,153.18 of the released amount was expended as at Oct 28, 2020.
“The ministry is proposing a total capital budget of N205,161,882,492 with Land transport estimates is N204,316,793,527, Marine transport estimates N845,088,965 with overhead of N358,799,999 in the 2021 budget which is before you for consideration.
” The aims and objectives of these proposal are to make significant progress on all ongoing projects and to complete and deliver modern railway services that would provide an efficient and cost effective alternative transport system for economic growth and creation of job opportunities for the citizenry.”
According to him, Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology (NITT)Zaria and Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) are fully funded from the national budget while NIWA, Maritime Academy and CRFFN derives their funding from both the national budget as well as the Internally Generated Revenues (IGR).
He however, stated that three of the agencies under the ministry, namely NPA, NIMASA and NSC are fully self-funding and make reasonable remittances to the consolidated revenue fund.
Amaechi said that the major role of the ministry in the marine transport sector is to oversee the monitoring of the implementation of government policies for the sub sector which are largely carried out by the agencies.
He further disclosed that the budget proposal has presented amounts required for completion of some of the projects by year 2021 while others may span up to 2022.
He added that the ministry is focused majorly on completing the ongoing National Freight Offices at Illela, Jibiya and Idiroko in addition to other Land transport projects in 2021.
