New Telegraph

Budgit: N81.7bn Allocation For Streetlights Construction Exceeds Schools, PHCs’ Budget

BudgIT’s service delivery promotion platform, Tracka, which allows citizens to track and give feedback on public projects in their communities, yesterday announced that its findings reveal that a total of N81.7 billion was allocated to the construction of solar street lights in the 2023 Federal Government Capital and Constituency projects.

According to a press release, the amount is higher than the total allocation to schools and Primary Health Centres (PHCs), which gulped N77.9 billion and N3.1 billion, respectively, in the budget. The statement noted: “In 2022, a UNESCO report tagged Nigeria’s out- of-school children figures at 20 million, a staggering 52 per cent increase from the 10.5 million reported by UNICEF in 2020.

Nigeria’s child mortality rate is the second-highest in the world, and maternal mortality is at 576 per 100,000 live births, the fourth- highest in the world. “In a country plagued with these critical issues, dwindling revenue, and a failing economy, the bogus allocation to street- lights is a gross misplacement of priority.

Nigeria is also presently littered with non-functional and vandalized streetlights that have stopped working less than two years after their construction.” In addition, the platform said its analysis also showed that over 687 projects worth N112 billion were allocated to agencies outside their mandate.

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