BudgIT has questioned the Federal Government’s allocation of N81.7 billion for the building of solar streetlights in the 2023 budget.
According to Nairametrics, in a statement issued on Friday, the budget monitoring organization claimed that the amount budgeted for streetlights was greater than the sums allotted for schools and primary health facilities, which totals N77.9 billion and N3.1 billion, respectively.
In 2022, a UNESCO assessment put the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria at 20 million, a startling 52% rise from the 10.5 million children reported by UNICEF in 2020, according to BudgIT.
The statement claims that the acting head of BudgIT’s Tracka platform, Ayomide Ladipo, expressed her concern over this development as she stated that Tracka enables users to cooperate, track, and provide input on public initiatives in their communities.
“These organizations lack the knowledge and staff necessary to ensure the quality service delivery of these projects, which results in under delivery of the projects, a massive waste of public funds, and a depletion of already limited resources.
BudgIT called on Nigerians to question the discrepancies in the budget expenditures of 2023. They also called on elected representatives to properly perform oversight functions, provide timely updates to the public, carry citizens along, and ensure the quality implementation of the projects they nominated so that the citizens can maximize the benefits from public funds.
