The Senate Committee on Sports has called for\u00a0an increase in the daily feeding allowance paid to National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members across the federation. The committee said this was in consideration of the contribution of corps members to national development.<\/p>\n
The Chairman of the Committee, Sen.Obinna Ogba (PDP-Ebonyi) made the call in Abuja on Tuesday, while submitting the committee\u2019s 2022 budget defence report of Ministry of Sports and Youth Development to the Senate Committee on Appropriations.<\/p>\n
Senator Ogba, said it is worrisome\u00a0that corps members, who devoted their talents, skills in the service of the nation for one year,\u00a0were\u00a0paid\u00a0N600 as daily meal allowance as against the payment of N1,000 daily meal allowance to prisoners by the Nigerian Correctional Service.<\/p>\n
Ogba, who also decried the decreasing yearly budgetary allocations to the ministry,\u00a0called for increased allocation of fund in its 2022 budget, given the importance of sports to youth development.<\/p>\n
He said adequate fund was required to drive sports development, which ultimately would drive the development of youths and the economy at large.<\/p>\n
He said it was the responsibility of the government to provide enabling environment such as security, sports Infrastructure, like adequate stadiums, to attract investors and drive investments in the sports industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoney is required for\u00a0development of sports in the country,\u201d Ogba said.<\/p>\n
He said that the five billion\u00a0naira,\u00a0budgeted in the ministries\u2019 2022 capital expenditure was grossly inadequate for sports development and mobilisation of\u00a0youths into sporting activities.<\/p>\n
Collaborating ,Ogbas position, a member of the committee,\u00a0Sen. Smart Adeyemi (APC-Kogi) said there was an urgent need to increase funding to the ministry, adding that the committee had\u00a0 the ability to ensure improved allocation.<\/p>\n
Adeyemi noted that investment in the sports sector would\u00a0improve the economy, noting that sport was a big time business in other nations.<\/p>\n
He advocated for\u00a0provision of a \u201cSpecial Fund\u201d from the appropriation committee, adding that sport would provide jobs for\u00a0unemployed youths and discourage social vices.<\/p>\n
Also reacting, Chairman of the committee, Sen.Barau Jibril (APC-Kano) said there was need to have a \u201cMaster Plan\u201d to drive sports development in the country. He also said that private sector investment was the trend in sports development across the world.<\/p>\n
Barau went further to say that the Federal Government is investing much in youth development by earmarking funds in the budget for\u00a0development of youths via its various humanitarian programmes.<\/p>\n
However, Sen. Stella Oduah (APC-Anambra) said the budget of the ministry did not appear to speak toward development of\u00a0youths.<\/p>\n
Oduah said there was need to revert to the planning stages of sports development, noting that the basics of youth development via sports must be put in place.<\/p>\n
Other committees that\u00a0submitted their budget reports to the appropriation committee were committees on Air Force, Drugs and Narcotic, Trade and Investment, Ecology, among others.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Senate Committee on Sports has called for\u00a0an increase in the daily feeding allowance paid to National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members across the federation. The committee said this was in consideration of the contribution of corps members to national development. The Chairman of the Committee, Sen.Obinna Ogba (PDP-Ebonyi) made the call in Abuja on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n