The Senate Committee on Science and Technology has rejected the 2022 budget proposal of the National Board for Technology Incubation.
The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Uche Ekwunife, stated this on Tuesday when the management of the board, led by its acting Director-General, Taiwo Somefun, appeared before her panel to defend its 2022 budget.
Ekwunife said the panel hinged its decision on the merger of the hitherto separate budgets of the over 40 incubation centres across the country with that of the agency’s headquarters in the next year’s fiscal estimates.
She, therefore, demanded the immediate restoration of the semi-financial autonomy granted to the centres over the years in the interest of the nation’s economy and that of the gifted Nigerian youths.
Ekwunife also called on the Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, to act on the letter of protest from the Ministry of Science and Technology on the matter and revert to the previous arrangements.
She vowed that her panel would not pass the NBTI’s 2022 budget unless the anomaly was corrected.
She also alleged that the action of the Finance Minister could kill technological innovations among the Nigerian youths if the anomaly was not immediately corrected.
The Senator said, “The National Board for Technology Incubation is one of the key parastatals of the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, vested with the responsibility of conception and delivery of technological ideas in the country. Among other key functions of the agency is to identify viable research and technological resources, indigenous technology and knowledge for commercialisation and develop strategies and processes for incubating them. MIT also coordinates technology incubation in the country. In the light of this, and many functions of the NBTI, there is no better time than now that we need optimal capacity performances of the board. There is a high turnover of graduates on yearly basis from our institutions of higher learning. Since there are scarce white-collar jobs, the need for a paradigm shift to equip youths with technological skills that would make them self reliant can not be overemphasised. Also, if the NBTI had performed its duty creditably, antisocial behaviours such as juvenile delinquency, drug abuse and other vices among the youths would drastically reduce, if not totally eradicated in our society