N2.72bn Capital Vote Inadequate, Minister Tells Senate

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs Jumoke Oduwole, on Monday raised serious concerns about the Federal Ministry’s proposed N2.72 billion capital allocation for 2026, warning that the sum is inadequate to deliver the scale of programmes required to drive Nigeria’s industrialisation, trade expansion, and investment-attracting agenda.

Speaking during the defence of the ministry’s 2026 budget proposal before the joint Senate Committees on Trade and Investment and Industry, Oduwole appealed to the National Assembly for a targeted increase in capital funding.

She stressed that without adequate resources, the ministry’s ability to support President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and the push for a trillion-dollar economy would be severely constrained.

“The proposed capital allocation of N2.72bn will be a stretch in meeting the full demands of our programmes and capital projects.

“Given the scope of our responsibilities, we respectfully seek the committee’s support for targeted enhancement of our capital allocation to enable us to effectively deliver on our mandate,” Oduwole told lawmakers.

The minister described the ministry as central to Nigeria’s economic transformation, particularly in diversifying the economy away from oil, growing non-oil exports, stimulating domestic production, and attracting both local and foreign investment.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment, Senator Umar Sadiq, acknowledged the ministry’s strategic importance to the administration’s economic vision.

“We are all aware of the renewal agenda of Mr President, which is essentially to ensure that we have a trillion-dollar economy. The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment is a major partner in achieving this objective outside the oil sector,” he said.

However, Sadiq stressed that National Assembly support would hinge on transparency, accountability, and measurable impact, noting that lawmakers were more interested in results than rhetoric.

Also speaking, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Industry, Senator Francis Fadahunsi, urged the ministry to clearly demonstrate the impact of its agencies on the lives of Nigerians, particularly regarding job creation, export growth, and industrial development.

In her presentation, Oduwole highlighted the ministry’s achievements over the past two years to justify an increased capital allocation.

The minister disclosed that Nigeria recorded about $21 billion in capital importation in the first ten months of 2025, compared to $12 billion in 2024 and under $4 billion in 2023.

She attributed the improvement to deliberate ministry interventions, including the development of over $5 billion in bankable investment projects, sector-focused deal rooms, and Nigeria’s first Domestic Investor Summit.

The minister added that the ministry had resolved more than 50 major investor bottlenecks and conducted over 100 bilateral investment engagements with countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and Japan.

According to her, sustained engagement under the Nigeria–UK Economic and Trade Partnership led to UK investors accounting for about 65 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign capital inflows in 2025.

On trade performance, Oduwole revealed that Nigeria recorded a trade surplus in 2025, with total trade value estimated at N113tn in the first three quarters, while exports grew by 11 per cent year-on-year to approximately $6.1bn — the highest in the country’s history.

She credited ministry-led export facilitation measures, expansion of export warehouses, new air cargo corridors to Africa, and improved implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area for a 14 per cent growth in Nigeria’s intra-African trade.

In the industrial sector, the minister disclosed that special economic zones generated over $500 million in export revenue and created more than 20,000 direct jobs in 2025.

She also highlighted the Federal Executive Council’s approval of the National Industrial Policy and Nigeria’s successful bids to host CANEX 2026 and the Intra-Africa Trade Fair 2027.

Oduwole warned that despite these achievements, funding constraints were already limiting the ministry’s effectiveness.

She disclosed that while personnel and overhead allocations were fully utilised in both 2024 and 2025, capital releases had been inconsistent, noting that no capital funds had been released to the ministry in 2025 at the time of the budget defence.

Lawmakers expressed concern that the 2026 budget proposal was largely a rollover of the 2025 budget, in line with federal budget guidelines, leaving limited room for new capital initiatives.

Responding, the minister acknowledged the rollover framework but maintained that even within those constraints, enhanced capital funding was critical.

“Our ministry is programme-led and service-oriented. We are not a revenue-generating ministry in the conventional sense,” she said. “We facilitate investment, solve regulatory bottlenecks, open markets for Nigerian products, and support domestic investors. To do this effectively, we need capital resources.”

She added that the ministry planned to intensify non-oil export promotion, deepen AfCFTA implementation, roll out digital investor and trade facilitation platforms, and extend trade and investment support to sub-national levels across all geopolitical zones in 2026 — initiatives she said would be difficult to execute with the current capital envelope.

Members of the committees said the concerns raised would be carefully considered as the National Assembly continues scrutiny of the 2026 budget proposals, amid growing pressure to ensure that critical economic ministries are adequately funded to deliver growth, jobs, and economic diversification.