By Tordue Salem
ABUJA—THE House of Representatives, yesterday, passed a budget of N240.5billion for the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC in 2010.
President Goodluck Jonathan made a proposal of N236billion for the commission last week, but the House decided to increase the budget by N4billion.

Part of the amount would be drawn from the “Statutory Revenue Fund of the Niger Delta Development Commission.”
Breakdown of the budget showed that N91.582billion would be drawn from the NDDC fund, while N43.176billion would come as Federal Government Contribution. N100 million would be contributed by “oil companies and others”, while N370million would come from other “internally_realised income”.

The original proposal read: Revenue Brought Forward: N91, 582.63billion, Federal Government Contribution (Submission by President): N35, 621.77billion, Federal Government Contribution (Excess Crude/Arrears): N9, 012.99billion; Oil Companies Contribution and Others: N100million, Internally Generated Revenue: N370million

The President’s letter read also provided that: “Pursuant to Section 18(1) of the Niger Delta Development Commission (Establishment, etc.) Act, I wish to submit the 2010 estimate of the expenditure and income of the Commission for the kind consideration and approval of National Assembly.

“This (proposal) represents an increase of 84.3 per cent over last year’s budget made up of Personnel Expenditure of N5, 860.25million, Recurrent Expenditure of N6,964.48million, Capital Expenditure of N1, 730.55million and Projects (Development) Expenditure of N222,032.11million.”

However, Rep. John Halims Agoda, PDP, Ethiope, Delta, protested the figures.

Agoda who described the proposal which came towards the third quarter of the 2010 fiscal year, as a sign of “executive un-seriousness,” insisted that the proposal was belated.

He said: “It could have been better, if it came together with the budget 2010 proposal.”