Juliet Akoje in Abuja
Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Culture and Tourism yesterday resolved to embark on oversight of all departments and agencies under its committee before engaging them on their budget defence.
The committee also gave a week timeframe for the completion of the oversight owing to the deadline for the committee to turn in its report to the Appropriation Committee of the House during the committee session in Abuja yesterday.
Members of the committee made the decision when it became apparent that none of the agencies that turned up for the exercise on the first allotted day met the criteria set by the committee for their appearance.
The committee had among necessary documents requested for copies of power-point presentations on physical projects embarked upon by the agencies from 2019 to 2022 to convince it that they actually applied their previous years’ capital expenditure and recurrent releases on what they claimed on paper.
None of the six federal agencies present at the budget defence exercise seemed prepared for the PowerPoint presentation, prompting the committee to opt for the oversight to see things at first hand.
The Chairman of the committee, Hon. Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama, had earlier apologised to the agencies for not having embarked on the oversight before now, emphasising that the agencies’ ability to receive appropriation in the 2023 budget depended on convincing committee members on how judiciously previous capitals and overheads were spent.
He stressed the dwindling budgetary allocation to the Culture and Tourism Ministry over the years, noting that the full potential of the sector cannot be fully realised without proper funding of the ministry, its regulator.
According to him, “The Qatar World Cup fiesta commencing later this month is a typical example of how a well-funded culture and tourism sub sector can project a country to limelight. That the Qatari culture and tourism department is the arrowhead of the 2022 sport festival is due to the fact that it is well funded.
“At this point, I join others in calling on the government at the centre to up the money made available to the Culture and Tourism Ministry for the country to get the best out of it.”
