The permanent secretary of the ministry, Fatima Bamidele, told journalists that since August 2014, no capital funding had been received by the ministry.
She spoke after a briefing President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
This, she said was one of the major challenges facing the ministry and what it asked the president to look into.
President Buhari had last week embarked on debriefing permanent secretaries of ministries and heads of agencies.
Fielding questions from journalists on the challenges the ministry was facing, Ms. Bamidele said,
“Such challenges include funding. Since August 2014, the ministry has not received any fund for capital projects up until today, so a lot of our projects are being stalled and we don’t want abandonment of projects. So we ask that funding can be sourced for the ministry’s projects.”
She said although there was a budget for the ministry, it had been affected by the slash of percentage of releases from the federal government coffers.
“Yes, we have been receiving budget,” she said. “Equally, from 2012 till date, if you recall adequately, releases from the federal coffers is limited to about 48-50 per cent for most ministries. This is invariably has led to accumulation of liabilities for my ministry and other ministries.”
She said the paucity of funds had also affected the completion of its housing projects as well as other projects handled by the ministry. She said about 250 out of the 400 have been completed “and quite a number of projects that are waiting to be kick started again as a result of lack of funds.”
The permanent secretary said she also briefed the president on the progress of the East West Road which is now 88.4 per cent completed.
“The East-West road has increased the economic activities in the area,” she said. “It has opened up the place to various economic activities.”
She also spoke on the acheivments of her ministry, explaining why it was established.
“We have done quite a number of things,” she said. “Our mandate is first to ensure the economic empowerment of the people. This we have done through the empowerment of women and youth in the Niger Delta. We have trained at least 4,000 people in agriculture, maritime activities, ICT.
“Part of our mandate also is to ensure we have peace in the region and to reduce militancy and restiveness amongst the youth. This we have to do through town hall meetings and sensitization meetings with the people in the area. We talked to them and convinced them on the need to work together with the federal government to empower the area and develop the area.”
She said like in the case of other ministries, the president gave them the assurances that their case will be looked into.
She also spoke on a possible merger of the ministry with another. She said the future of the ministry was not discussed with the President, noting that it is the prerogative of government to take any action on the future of the ministry.
“We are civil servants, we will just comply,” she said.
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