National Population Commission ( NPC) has said that it is proposing to spend a total sum of N532.7 billion to conduct national census in April 2023. Speaking in Abuja when he appeared before the Senator Sahabi Ya’u led Senate Committee on National Population and Identity Management to defend the 2023 budget estimates, Chairman of the Commission, Alhaji Nasir Isa Kwarra said that the N532.7billion was purely a proposal for the conduct of the 2023 census. He said the census would be digitally done, that the N10 billion budgetary proposal for 2023 fiscal year earmarked for NPC was beside the sum of N532. 795 billion estimated for conduct of 2023 Census.
He said “NPC is ready to re- write the history of census in Nigeria by making the 2023 one not only accurate, credible, reliable but acceptable to all Nigerians.” The NPC boss said that the proposed sum for conduct of 2023 census, covers post enumeration survey and that the exercise will be a great departure from the past in terms of keying into the issue of climate change. In the 2023 budgetary proposal for the Commission, Kwarra said that envelope of N1.05 billion was earmarked for capital expenditure, N655 million for overhead and N8.6 billion for personnel, adding that for the 2022 fiscal year, a total of N206.85 billion was appropriated for the commission out which N107.7 billion was earmarked for capital expenditure, N615 million for overhead and N7.8 billion for personnel cost .
In his remarks, the Chairman of the Committee , Senator Sahabi Ya’u told the NPC boss to furnish the committee with details of projects executed with the 2022 appropriation line by line and those proposed for the 2023 fiscal year. Request by the NPC boss to decorate Chairman and members of the committee as 2023 Census Ambassadors at the beginning of the session was however turned down.
