The review of the monetisation policy by the present administration was initiated to stop the possibility of ministers driving second-hand cars even on presidential assignments, the Minister of National Planning, Senator Sanusi Daggash, said yesterday. At the budget defence session of the commission before the Senate Committee on National Planning, Daggash said the N1 billion budgetary proposals for new vehicles for Ministers and other presidential aides was aimed at giving the dignitaries some symbol of essence reflective of their positions in government.

He made the assertions while defending the 2008 budget estimates for the commission before the Senator Zainab Kure-led Committee on National Planning just as the Senate Committee on Environment yesterday returned the budgetary proposals of the Federal Ministry of Environment to the ministry.

The Minister of Environment, Mrs. Halima Alao, who led a delegation of ministry officials and heads of parastatals to defend the ministry’s 2008 financial proposals was told by the Senator Grace Bent-led Committee on Environment to go and repackage the defence following the observation of flaws in the packages presented.

However, the Senate Committee on Communication and Media yesterday expressed concern on what it described as the under-funding of projects in the Ministry of Communication. Committee Chairman, Senator Ayogu Eze, told the Minister of Information and Communication, Mr. John Odey, during the budget defence presentation yesterday that the Committee would address areas of shortfall in the budget.

At the budget defence hearing of the National Planning Commission, Senator Daggash when asked on the fate of the monetisation policy initiated by the immediate past administration responded thus:

“When this government came in everybody was driving any form of car, then all of a sudden the government said we were going to sign a charter of national restoration.’’

Source: Vanguard