By Kayode Sanni-Arewa

Ahead of the passage of 2025 Appropriation Bill, the National Assembly Joint Committee on Agricultural Production and Services has vowed to award zero allocations to agencies under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in this year’s budget.

The National Assembly has reiterated that agencies that fail to be represented by their respective chief accounting officers would not be allowed to make their presentations.

According to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Agricultural Production and Services, Saliu Mustapha and his House of Representatives counterpart, Bello Kaoje, this action would be taken to deal with heads of agencies who fail to give an account of their 2024 budget performance and projections in the New Year.

The Committee which issued the warning yesterday in Abuja in the continuation of the defence of the 2025 budget estimates by Ministries, Department and Agencies, was not happy that despite the directive of President Bola Tinubu that all heads of agencies must appear before the National Assembly to defend their budget estimates, many of them still prefer to send their subordinates.

Members of the Committee yesterday expressed their anger when the Director General of the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service, Vincent Isegbe who was listed to brief the committee of the performance of his agency in the 2024 budget and projections in 2025 did not show up for the exercise.

In his remarks, Senator Mustapha who told the representative of the Director General that there was no reason for the Chief Executive who is the accounting officer of the agency to be absent and directed that he appear on Monday, January 20, said “We are not going to attend to you. When the President came to present this budget, he made it clear that all heads of agencies must come to defend their estimates and should therefore call off any plan to travel. We are going to give him another time, but that may not be too convenient for him because we have a time frame to submit our report.

“We should all make this thing easy for ourselves. There is no need for us to drag what we don’t need to drag. Even if he is coming to make an excuse, he should have been here to say these are the people that will do this thing on my behalf.

“The President made it very clear that nobody should travel when he came to present the budget. Why is it now that your principal chose to travel? Tell him that we are available tomorrow.”

Earlier in his opening remarks, Senator Mustapha who noted that the projections by the World Food Programme that about 33.1m Nigerians will be hit by acute hunger in 2025 is a clear indication that food security is a task that must be accomplished, said “The projection by the World Food Programme that about 33.1m Nigerians will face food insecurity in 2025 is an indication that food crisis is what we cannot allow to happen and we collectively need to avert.

“Given the critical role that agriculture plays in ensuring food security, economic stability and rural development, it is important that adequate budgetary provisions be made to address the challenges the sector faces today.

“The combined effect of climate change, desertification and other environmental challenges put agricultural productivity under severe threat necessitating improved budgetary allocation to the sector”.

On his part, Kaoje who noted that food security forms one of the challenges facing the country today, leading to the president declaring a state of emergency on food security in 2024, said “Sometime last year, Mr President declared a state of emergency on food security. We have had a robust discussion with the Minister of Agriculture who enumerated a lot of challenges before us and we assured him that the two committees will do something to make sure that the budget is enhanced.

“We will do everything possible to ensure that where you have challenges, we can assist. We will put our heads together with the appropriation committee to make sure that the renewed hope agenda of the President is achieved in the area of food security.”

On his part, the Director General, National Agricultural Seed Council, Ishiak Khalid who told the committee that only a paltry percentage of the agency’s capital allocation in 2024 was released, said, “We had a very tough time in 2024. Only 9 per cent of our total 2024 capital allocation and over 90 per cent are still being withheld. This has made it very difficult to cope with our mandate because, without quality seeds, it is difficult to have good yields.”

Asked if the council can partner with development partners to meet some of its funding needs, the NASC boss said, “We have development partners but they don’t give us funding directly. What they do is that if they have a programme they want us to participate in, they send us flight ticket, book hotel accommodation and all that.”

On his part, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Agriculture Development Fund, Muhammed Ibrahim who lamented the agency’s lack of adequate manpower, more than a year after assuming office, said, “Unlike the Seed Council, we had zero release in our capital allocation in 2024. But that is not all. About 15 months after we assumed office, we are yet to have a salary scale. Most of our staff members are contracted while some are deployed from other agencies of government.”

At the end of the session, the Joint Committee assured that it would assist the agency not only to get an adequate allocation in the 2025 budget but also to help in the manpower gap to enable it to discharge its responsibility to the public.