*As Reps accuse education ministry of poor budget implementation

By Tordue Salem

ABUJA—Minister of State for Education, Dr. Kenneth Gbagi, has attributed the dismal state of education in Nigeria to successive governments’ lip service and negligence.

This year’s total budget (capital & recurrent) to the Ministry is N271.1billion, but the implementation status is just 27.73%, just few weeks to the end of the last quarter of the year.

Last year’s budget was even less, it was N224.6billion, and yet it was not 100 percent executed, provoking the Minister of State to regret that several decades after the country signed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, protocol, budgets for education remained far below the 26 percent minimum set by the United Nations’ agency.

The Minister spoke at an oversight with the House of Representatives Committee on Education, led by Rep. Faruk Lawan.

“Until we take education budget to the fore, we cannot expect development.

Nigeria has been a member of UNESCO and it took part in the protocol where the minimum required of every member country for education every year is 26%.

“But we are yet to meet this minimum; we say our children are the leaders of tomorrow, but how can they be? If they must be, the Federal Government must pay attention to the education sector, rather than paying lip-service,” he said.

Earlier, Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Mr. Lawan, who led a committee of angry lawmakers, described the performance of education’s budget this year as the worst in the country’s history.

“The implementation of the 2010 budget of Education Ministry is the poorest so far in the history of our democracy.

“The implementation is barely 20 percent and this is an embarrassment that is totally unacceptable. A budget is a law and must be obeyed,” he said.

The lawmaker warned that “the semblance of peace that exists between the legislature and the executive will soon overheat and it is important that we draw the attention of the executive to the fact that education budget implementation must be improved because for us, it is unacceptable that monies will be released and the monies will not be used for the purpose for which they were released.