The warning was prompted by the absence of the Director General of the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service who was scheduled to present his agency’s performance review.
The National Assembly joint committee on agricultural production and services has threatened to withhold allocations in the 2025 budget for agencies under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security whose officials fail to account for their 2024 budget performance and 2025 projections.
The warning on was given on Thursday during the continuation of the defence of the 2025 budget estimates by Ministries, Department and Agencies.
The committee reiterated that agencies must be represented by their chief accounting officers, in line with President Bola Tinubu’s directive. The warning was prompted by the absence of the Director General of the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service, Vincent Isegbe, who was scheduled to present his agency’s performance review.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agricultural Production and Services, Saliu Mustapha and his House of Representatives counterpart, Bello Kaoje expressed frustration over noncompliance and instructed the DG to appear on January 20.
He said “We are not going to attend to you. When the President came to present this budget, he made it clear that all heads of agencies must come to defend their estimates and should therefore call off any plan to travel. We are going to give him another time, but that may not be too convenient for him because we have a time frame to submit our report.
“We should all make this thing easy for ourselves. There is no need for us to drag what we don’t need to drag. Even if he is coming to make an excuse, he should have been here to say these are the people that will do this thing on my behalf.
“The President made it very clear that nobody should travel when he came to present the budget. Why is it now that your principal chose to travel? Tell him that we are available tomorrow.”
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The session also highlighted pressing concerns about food security, with Sen. Mustapha referencing projections from the World Food Programme that 33.1 million Nigerians may face acute hunger in 2025. He called for increased budgetary provisions to tackle agricultural challenges like climate change, desertification, and poor funding.
He said “The projection by the World Food Programme that about 33.1m Nigerians will face food insecurity in 2025 is an indication that food crisis is what we cannot allow to happen and we collectively need to avert.
“Given the critical role that agriculture plays in ensuring food security, economic stability and rural development, it is important that adequate budgetary provisions be made to address the challenges the sector faces today.
“The combined effect of climate change, desertification and other environmental challenges put agricultural productivity under severe threat necessitating improved budgetary allocation to the sector”.
Kaoje reiterated the urgency of addressing food insecurity, citing President Tinubu’s 2024 declaration of a state of emergency on the issue. He pledged the committee’s commitment to enhancing the agriculture budget in alignment with the administration’s agenda.
He said “Sometime last year, Mr President declared a state of emergency on food security. We have had a robust discussion with the Minister of Agriculture who enumerated a lot of challenges before us and we assured him that the two committees will do something to make sure that the budget is enhanced.
“We will do everything possible to ensure that where you have challenges, we can assist. We will put our heads together with the appropriation committee to make sure that the renewed hope agenda of the President is achieved in the area of food security.”
Meanwhile, agency representatives voiced concerns about inadequate funding. The Director General of the National Agricultural Seed Council, Ishiak Khalid, revealed that only 9 percent of the council’s 2024 capital allocation had been released, severely hampering operations. Similarly, Muhammad Ibrahim, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Agriculture Development Fund, lamented staffing shortages and a lack of financial support, noting that the agency has yet to establish a salary structure 15 months after its creation.
He said, “We had a very tough time in 2024. Only 9 per cent of our total 2024 capital allocation and over 90 per cent are still being withheld. This has made it very difficult to cope with our mandate because, without quality seeds, it is difficult to have good yields.”
The joint committee pledged to assist the agency not only to get an adequate allocation in the 2025 budget but also to help in the manpower gap to enable it to discharge its responsibility to the public.
