JUST IN: 2023 Budget: I need more funds to fight fake news, Lai Mohammed tells Senate

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed on Tuesday said that his ministry needs more funds to tackle the scourge of fake news.

The Minister said this while speaking in Abuja when he appeared before Senator Danladi Sankara, All Progressives Congress, APC, Jigawa North-West led Senate Committee on Information to defend the budget for 2023.

He emphasized to the Senate that his Ministry needs more funds as a matter of urgency to tackle the scourge of fake news, hate speech and propagate the achievements of government in the last 7 and a half years.

Mohammed while lamenting the paucity of funds and its impact on the activities of the Ministry described the situation as “very sad”.

He stressed that out of the total of N2.5 billion appropriated to the Ministry and all of its agencies for capital projects in 2022, only a paltry N1.7 billion was released representing 41% to undertake 22 different projects.

The Minister who lamented the prospect of having the capital budget for the Ministry and its entire agencies in 2023 slashed to N869 million complained that only the sum of N525 million representing 58% of the Ministry’s allocation was released for overheads in 2022.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Sankara explained to the Minister that the slash in budget was not limited to his Ministry.

The Chairman pointed out that capital votes in the 2022 budget has dropped from N2.5trillion to N1trillion in the budget for 2023.

Responding, the Information Minister acknowledged that the paucity of funds was not peculiar to his Ministry.

He, however, appealed to the Senate Committee and the Federal Government to increase the purse of the Ministry by granting it special considerations at a time when government is faced with serious challenges.

He said, “If there is any ministry that should adequately funded and not suffer from yearly budget cut is the Information Ministry. “We’re going to have a very difficult year and I  don’t know how we are going to do it.

“Yes, while it is true that paucity of funds has affected all government ministries and agencies it is important for government to at a time it is going through challenges rely on its media to put the people’s mind at rest and ask them not to panic and at a time the government is now swimming of fake news misinformation”.

The Minister noted that the latest of such misinformation that needs urgent repair is the US Security Alert on Abuja which he said has affected the image and economy of the country.

He said, “Even if the govt stops working, it should continue to publicise what it has done.”