NDDC gets budget of N322 billion for 2014

The Senate at its plenary meeting on Tuesday approved a budget of N322.6 billion for the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta, James Manager, presented the budget to the senate.
The budget breakdown contained money for personnel expenditure, overhead expenditure, capital expenditure, and projects expenditure.
The overhead expenditure initially allocated was N10.1 billion while the expenditure allocated by the committee and approved by the Senate was N9.9 billion.
The capital expenditure which was N2.2 billion was changed to N1.9 billion while the project expenditure which was N295.5 billion was changed to N295.6 billion.
The personnel cost of N15 billion remained the same.
The budget was referred to the Niger Delta committee on June 5 for further deliberation.
During deliberations before the approval of the budget, Abdul Ningi, representing Bauchi Central Senatorial District, suggested that the NDDC budget should have been treated like a bill because of the finances involved.