February 1, 2018

The House of Representatives has urged the National Board of Technology Incubation (NBTI) to give priority to its Technology Incubation Centres nationwide in its budgetary allocation than the headquarters.

The House gave this advice when the management of NBTI appeared before the House Committee on Science and Technology to defend its budget for 2018 on Thursday in Abuja.

Mr Ibrahim Isiaka, representing Ifo/Ewekoro, Federal Constituency of Ogun told Director-General of the board, Prof. Muhammed Jubrin that the centres were actually close to the grassroots.

Isiaka said the people at the grassroots would benefit more from the board’s activities and therefore should have larger chunk of the budgetary allocation.

He frowned at the small amount allocated to the centres, which were actually tasked with the training of the entrepreneurs that create economic values.

He advised that in subsequent budgets, more money should be allocated to the centres for effective empowerment to be achieved.

Siaka commended the board for its contribution to national development, saying it had contributed positively to the socio-economic advancement of his state.

The Chairperson of the committee, Mrs Benial Solomon Lar, admonished the board to be more detailed next time it appeared before the committee.

She told the board to look beyond capital expenditure but reflect more on the personnel and overhead to ensure that the board was following the federal character policy in the recruitment of personnel.

NIBTI director-general said the board followed the organogram of the organisation in drawing the budget, adding that most of the evaluation and monitoring work was done by the headquarters.

“When you look at the budget, the centres that have been included are about nine and the expenditures cover up to 50 per cent of what we have in the headquarters.

“And what we have in the remaining centres is to the tune of about 50 per cent, so by the time you subtotal, you discover that headquarters is taking 35 per cent and the centres are collecting 65 per cent.

“There has to be coordination, there has to be monitoring and evaluation, so if we don’t coordinate, monitor and evaluate the performance of the centres, they cannot operate effectively.

“The budget of 2018 is not much different from 2017, we only picked a small component and the same amount of money has been transferred to 2018, it is not really ambitious,’’ he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the board presented over N1. 1 billion for 2018, which is not much difference from the mount presented in 2017.