The upper chamber of the National Assembly has expressed concern over the meagre allocations proposed for the Ministry of Information and National Orientation.
The Senate Committee on Information made this observation during the budget defence of the Ministry of Information.
Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris Malagi, had told the committee that the N1billion earmarked for the Ministry as capital expenditure in 2024, would not be anyway sufficient for implementation of the programmes.
The Senate Committee on Information expressed its displeasure at the meagre allocations, after it took a key look at the clear-cut visions the Minister rolled-out for implementation in 2024.
During the Budget defence, the Minister had informed the senators that national values and attitudes re-orientation campaign under the aegis of National Values Charter (NVC), would be launched in early 2024.
He said: “It is the desire of the ministry to have a big national conversation around our values and attitudes re-orientation, so that Nigeria will at least rediscover its self and reclaim some of those values which have been eroded over the years, so that we can have a better country for all of us”.
Listing out areas of concentration by his ministry, the Minister said, “We also desire the launch of the National and International branding campaign for Nigeria to highlight and showcase Nigeria’s immense natural and cultural resources.
“We are also going to convene and coordinate a regular series of press briefings and media engagements for cabinet members and other senior government officials, to avail Nigerians of what various ministries and agencies are doing, so that Nigerians will be carried along on what and what are the projects and programmes of Government.
“We also intend to invest resources in modernising the Federal Government information and communication management and regulatory system across the agencies for example, NAN, NTA, FRCN etc”.
Apparently impressed by the visions, the committee, chaired by Senator Kenneth Eze, said provisions in the 2024 Budget were nothing to write home about for implementing such laudable visions.
