The Federal Government says it has cut down expenditures for the upcoming COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Briefing journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, the Special adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, said that the measure would save the government about N10 billion from the 11-day event.
“Many Nigerians would recall that as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the federal government of Nigeria’s delegation to COP28 in Dubai, UAE, last year, there were some elements of outcry concerning the size of the delegation,” Ngelale said.
According to Ngelale, the cutting down of the official expenditure is necessary to avoid the embarrassment of COP28 which took place in Dubai last November.
Among the measures to save funds, is that the government will no longer hire a pavilion which costs $500,000 while a delegation office will be set up inside the premises.
He added that some of the wasteful platforms that give rise to consultancies and subcontracts for lighting and other technology provisions will be abandoned as they can be provided directly by the National Council on Climate Change.
According to him, the cutdown will be achieved through the provision and implementation of the climate accountability and transparency portal.
“There was some deliberate misinformation, but the truth of the matter is, we also found that there were government officials who had no business at that meeting, at that meeting, and some with significant delegations.
“And in view of this, His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu, had approved an audit to be undertaken of that exercise to fully understand and ascertain what happened and what must be done to ensure that what happened never repeats itself in this country.
“And as a result of that, within the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action, which I lead, and in the Office of the Director General, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change in the person of Dr Nkiruka Madukwe, an exercise has been concluded detailing exactly what the expenditure profile was of COP28 with a view to ensuring that we implement measures that would ensure that whatever is spent ahead of COP29 has a function that will lead to the economic empowerment of our people and the economic development of our nation”.
Credit: channelstv.com
