Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has denied that it gave the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA N300 million subvention, as claimed by some publications and online platforms.
In a statement by the commission’s Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Henry Nkemadu, NCC described the claim of an NITDA N300 million subvention as falsehood and a total fabrication to create mischief.
The statement said that no agency of the Federal Government gives subvention to another, as by extant laws of the government, every agency makes its budget and gets approval for appropriation from the National Assembly.
It added that such budgets are spent according to the appropriation of the National Assembly.
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According to Nkemadu, “our budget doesn’t contain any allocation for subvention, let alone granting same to a sister-agency.
“We cannot create a provision in our budget for another agency to implement.
“Subventions to all agencies are done by the Federal Government with resources domiciled in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, CRF. Even salaries to Ministries Department and Agencies, MDAs, come from there.
“NITDA, as an agency of government, also draws its budget and spends same to execute their own programmes as they deem fit. Since the advent of the new administration, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, has always encouraged a working relationship and close synergy between all the parastatals under the purview of the ministry and not cross-funding of any of the parastatals.”
Commenting further on the reported NITDA N300m subvention, NCC said: “The minister has also facilitated support at the highest levels of government to programmes and activities of the Commission.
“Especially in facilitating meetings with the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, on issues of Right of Way for expanding the telecommunications infrastructure and declaring telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure, CNI.
“So, we did not receive any directive from him on funding any activity of NITDA (the alleged NITDA N300 million subvention) and no approval was given in that regard.
“Whoever thinks so, simply threw caution to the wind by rolling up speculative information that we know nothing about, let alone implementing.”
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