The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, presented the Capital Budget proposal of N11.7billion for the Ministry before the joint committee of the Senate on Marine Transport and House of Representatives Committee on Harbour, Maritime Education and Administration, Inland Waterways and Shipping Service.
While addressing the Joint Committee in Abuja, the minister raised concern that the money allocated to the ministry was not enough to do all that was expected of it.
The outcry by the Minister is against the backdrop of queries by the members of the Joint Committee on the lack of budgetary provisions for the dredging of River Niger, River Benue, and Lake Chad.
The members had raised concerns that most of the rivers have become silted which has made water transportation difficult and resulted in continued flooding of adjoining communities during raining season.
But the Minister stressed the need for adequate funding of the ministry for them to unlock the potentials of the marine and Blue Economy sector saying the Ministry is open to Private Public Partnerships to dredge the rivers
Defending the 2024 budget appropriation, Oyetola said of N10.8billion budget allocation, a total of N9.9billion has been utilized or committed by December 2024 while the remaining N874million will be utilised in the first quarter of 2025.
He stated that the 2025 budget proposal of the ministry is focused on port infrastructural development, increased fish production, Maritime Safety, and Security, Information Technology Deployment to improve operation and revenue generation, human capacity building, and the effective technical and economic regulation to ensure the strengthening of blue economy in Nigeria
He maintained that as a newly created Ministry, their initial focus was to set up enduring structures and systems for the effective management 6 of the blue economy sector, saying there are notable deficiencies in the sector such as general infrastructure decay, silted river courses, inadequate fish production, and inadequate river crafts require major attention.
Highlighting major achievements recorded under the 2024 appropriation, the Minister said they include finalisation of Nigeria’s National Blue Economy Strategy, preparation of the fisheries and aquaculture policy, the development of Strategic Roadmap for Nigeria’s Blue Economy and the National Policy for Marine and Blue Economy, development of Dry Ports at Ijebu-Ode and Moniya in Ogun State and Oyo State were among other achievements by the ministry
For 2025, he said the Ministry has targeted the provision of life jackets to the Riverine Communities in the states to boost the safety of boat passengers as well as replace rickety wooden boats used for commercial transport and capital dredging at selected locations on our major rivers
Mentioning that although the Ministry was unable to access the capital budget to the fisheries sector in 2024, he said for 2025 they are initiating major projects in the fisheries and aquaculture subsector to boost fish production.
The Chairman of Senate Committee on Marine Transport Senator Wasiu Eshinlokun in his closing remarks stressed the need to allocate more funding to the maritime sector if the government must generate more, saying the revenue Nigeria Customs generates from the ports is directly proportional to funds allocated to the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) as depriving NPA of funds is tantamount to reducing generation.
He assured that the National Assembly will do all they can to appropriate more funds to the sector.
