The proposed manual solution to the drying up of lake chad is part of the reasons why the minister advocated for increased allocation to the ministry
The minister of the environment, Mr. Balarabe Lawal, has said his ministry intends to tackle the shrinking of Lake Chad by drawing water from large water bodies in other countries into the lake.
The minister disclosed this at the 2024 budget defence meeting with the National Assembly joint committee on environment held at the senate on Friday, December 15, 2023.
Mr. Lawal said drawing water into the lake, along with tracking the rainfall pattern to mitigate flooding, was part of the projects the ministry plans to embark on in 2024.
He, however, noted that this is dependent on the funding provided as the ministry has been underfunded for years.
“We want to draw water from other countries to refill Lake chad. We are trying to adopt new strategies to prevent flooding. We are also trying to track the rain and make sure it works to our advantage. But we are poorly funded.
“Considering the wide mandate and cross cutting involvement in many other sectors, such as aviation, water resources, agriculture etc. it is obviously clear that the federal ministry of environment suffers insufficient budgetary provisions which has hindered delivery of programmes and projects to the citizens as expected.”
Lawal disclosed that the releases, particularly for overhead cost, were low in 2023, saying:“We are a ministry that moves around. We move around all the time but our overhead cost has not been forthcoming.”
The ministry’s proposed budget for 2024 is N63.6 billion. Of this, N3bn was allocated for personnel cost, N723m for overhead, N3.8bn for recurrent and N59.9bn for capital cost.
According to the minister, the ministry also intends to tackle environmental issues responsible for the persistence of malaria, Typhoid and other related illnesses from its allocations in 2024.
Lawal observed that if environmental issues are adequately addressed, the annual health budget will reduce and the environment will be more conducive for humans, animals and any living creature.
He also said“we also intend to partner with other agencies to address the issue of inadequate toilets. That is the one way to address open defecation. We also intend to urge all lawmakers to build at least one toilets in their constituency.”
