Senate fumes as FG budgets N2.1bn for military weapons industry

The Senate Committee on Defence, on Friday decried poor budgetary allocation to the Defence Industrial Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) in the 2022 fiscal estimates.   

The director-general of the DICON, Major-General Hassan Fafida, while appearing before the panel to defend the agency’s 2022 budget, said N2.1billion was allocated for capital expenditure.   

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He said the amount was short of N300 million from N2.4billion capital expenditure allocated for the DICON in 2021.

Tafida also told the committee that N250m proposed for his agency as overhead was grossly inadequate. 

Members of the committee, who frowned on the allocation for the production of military weapons, said it was not enough for a country battling worsening insecurity. 

Senator Abba Moro (PDP, Benue) said, “It is unfortunate that the DICON is reduced to a company that produces mere bullets when other countries we started together like Brazil have moved on and now producing aircraft for their military.”

He said Nigeria was not ready for industrial revolution as far as production of military equipment is concerned.