Budget 2016: Federal Ministry Of Solid Minerals Development Appropriation Bill By Saatah Nubari

Welcome to the seventeenth piece in the #SaatahBudgetSeries. This piece will focus on the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development.

As usual, before I begin, I will first name the agencies/institutions that are under the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development. These agencies/Institutions are: Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development HQTRS, Council of Nigerian Mining Engineers and Geosciences, Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency (Kaduna), National Metallurgical Development  Centre (Jos), Metallurgical Training Institute (Onitsha), National Iron Ore Mining Project (Itakpe), Nigeria Institute of Mining and Geoscience, Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office and Centres, Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited, and the Solid Mineral Development Fund Office.
FEDERAL MINISTRY OF SOLID MINERALS DEVELOPMENT

The Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development budgeted 926,893,275 for the “Purchase of Computers.” You read this and you get confused. You begin to wonder if this ministry deals with solid minerals on Earth or solid minerals on Mars. 926,893,275 for the “Purchase of Computers” is a wonderful allocation if we just found gold on Mars and are trying to build a new space station to somehow facilitate our extraction of it.

442,523,668 is budgeted for the “Purchase of Vehicles.” Somewhere in all of these allocations, I am yet to see something that shows this Ministry is a serious one. But we move to the other details.

In 2014, 576,000,000 is budgeted for “Research and Development,” while in 2015 it was 250,000,000. In 2016, the allocation for “Research and Development” is 584,448,000. I have emphasised about “Research and Development” being a guise for corrupt dealings, and I do so because, with all the yearly allocations going to this item, there is literally nothing to show for it. It would be good to have a long list of “Research” conducted by the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, and what they have ended up “Developing” in the past with the allocations they have received.

The Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development budgeted 228,605,000 for the “Sourcing and Purchase of Equipment (Purchase and Importation).” I have a problem with this item; what is this “Equipment” we are talking about? You cannot just say “Equipment” and append hundreds of millions of Naira for it. From what I have seen since I began the analysis of the 2016 budget, it is very possible for this “Equipment” to be a printer.

Brace for impact people, this is probably the most stupid and logic insulting provision you will find in this particular budget (I know we will see worse in other ministries). 795,234,275, this is what the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development has budgeted for the “Upgrade of Website.” First of all, I think we need to give the Minister of this Ministry a round of applause. Someone woke up and decided to spend 795,234,275 to “Upgrade a Website.” No single fear of God in the heart of those who included this item in the budget. They did not even try to make it look ambiguous and confusing, like saying something as confusing and stupid as “Upgrade of the World Wide Web.” It is safe to say that the budget for the Federal Ministry of Solid Mineral Development was drafted by someone interested in solid graft development. God save us.

23,700,000 is budgeted for “ID Card Machine.” I never knew an ID card machine could be this expensive, but what do I know, Nigeria throws surprises every now and then. That is not all. The Ministry also budgeted 7,214,000 for “Skill Acquisition in the Use of ID Card Machine.”

224,978,800 is budgeted for “Field Equipment, Site Visits, Environmental Auditing, Production Of Environmental Handbook, Project Vehicles, Stationaries And Staff Retreat On Environmental Awareness And Enforcement.” Firstly, I feel the person responsible for this provision purposely put together so many items, so as to confuse the reader and make the allocated amount look fair enough. This item is very suspicious.

“Site Visits, Project Design, Site Reclamation, Commissioning, 1no. Project Vehicle and Documentary” gets 179,590,000 allocated to it. Just like the previous item, this item is vague and suspicious. Each item mentioned therein can be self-standing and its cost made known instead of the way it is written.

183,675,000 is budgeted for “Engagement of 6 Professionals to Upgrade Miners Knowledge on Exploration, Exploitation & Processing Of Mineral Nationwide.” Well, all I can say is that the six “Professionals” to be “Engaged” are quite expensive.

The Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development thinks it is necessary to budget 100,000,000  to “Engage Legislative Consultants to Drive the Draft of Required Solid Mineral Laws.” As unnecessary as this provision is, what makes it worse is the huge amount allocated to it.

The Nigerian Geological Survey Agency budgeted 11,366,905 for “International Travel & Transport: Training,” while nothing was budgeted for “International Training.” Now, the question is, how do you travel for an “International Training” that is not budgeted for? Well, we must have magicians in this agency.

The Nigerian Geological Survey Agency also budgeted 2,460,933,239 for “Research and Development.” This “Research and Development” you people are doing, chai! Diaris god o.

The Metallurgical Training Institute (Onitsha) budgeted 52,834,520 for “Infrastructural Development” while another 71,540,800 was budgeted for the same item. Why the duplication? Which infrastructure is to be developed if I may ask?

Nigeria Institute of Mining and Geoscience has six provisions for “Purchase of Teaching / Learning Aid Equipment” and they are allocated 30,000,000, 30,000,000, 30,000,000, 23,000,000, 11,580,000 and 2,500,000 respectively. Why is this item duplicated?

The Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office and Centres will spend 20,000,000 on the “Organization of Bid Sessions for the ‘Concessioning’ of Bitumen Blocks.” I find this particular item very exorbitant.

Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited, the mother of all white elephant projects in the history of Nigeria, has a total budget of 3,992,312,019 with 3,623,506,019 of it going to “Personnel Cost.” This is how you know a project is useless.

The Solid Mineral Development Fund Office will spend 45,000,000 on “Enlightenment Visits, Electronic Media Campaign, Launch Event, State Workshops and Production of Dissemination Resources.”

We have come to the end of the seventeenth part of the budget analysis series. The in-between for today is: 6,000,000, this is the amount budgeted by the Upper Niger River Basin Development Authority for “3 Nos Hand Pump Boreholes In Kunchi, Niger State.” Have a wonderful day!

I am on Twitter @Saatah