The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has unequivocally denied ever giving the sum of N300 million to the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), describing any report on the contrary as mere falsehood.
NCC said in a statement signed by its Director, Public Affairs, Dr. Henry Nkemadu that in order to put the records straight, no agency of the Federal Government gives subvention to another agency.
“By extant laws of the government, every agency makes its budget and gets approval for appropriation from the National Assembly and such budgets are spent according to the appropriation of the National Assembly,” Nkemadu said in the statement.
He stated that the Commission’s budget does not 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, Departments and Agencies (MDA) come from there,” he stated.
Nkemadu noted that NITDA as an agency of government also draws its budget and spends the same to execute its own programmes as it deems fit.
He disclosed that since the advent of the new administration, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim 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.
“The Honourable 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 (RoW) for expanding the telecommunications infrastructure and declaring telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
“We did not receive any directive from the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, on funding any activity of NITDA 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,” he said.
Nkemadu stated that the NCC has not entered into any partnership with NITDA to warrant any subvention for capacity building let alone implementing one, adding that the aspect of creating a budget for subvention is not true.