By Laraba MUREY
A staggering N2,905,180,875 has been spent by the Federal Ministry of Environment to plant trees in Nigeria for the last three years.
The period covers the 2019, 2020 and 2021 fiscal years. In the 2022 budget, the ministry has voted N1 billion for the same purpose.
From its record, the ministry has expended N961,442,065 so far, in its effort at boosting the nations carbon credit, between 2019 – 2021.
During the same period, agencies under the ministry such as the National Agency for Great Green Wall, NAGGW, expended N1,075,854,764 for “tree planting,” between 2019 and 2021.
Similarly, the Forestry Research Institute of Ibadan committed N781,735,848 to tree planting for the same period.
The ministry currently under the supervision of the Minister of State for Environment, Hon. Sharon Ikeazor, has focused on increasing the nation’s carbon credit to fight climate change.
The 2022 budget reads in part: “Federal Ministry of Environment headquarters” with the code “23040101 tree planting N633,366,380; Federal College of Forest Resources Management, Ebonyi State (South -East N 92,014,769 and the National Agency for Great Green Wall Hqtrs N322,576,900.”
The total planned expenditure for tree planting in the year 2022 stands at N1,047,958,049.
Distribution of the budgeted figure for the last three years showed that in 2019 Ministry of Environment, headquarters in Mabushi, voted N214,102,193 for tree planting; it budgeted, N388,127,422 in 2020 amended budget and N359,212,450 for 2021. These amounts for “tree planting” in the last three years totaled N961.4 by the mother ministry without her agencies.
In sum, it will cost Nigerian taxpayers over N4 billion to plant trees in four years.
The ministry had in its budget for general preservation of the environment, committed a cumulative sum of N1.6billion, including the extant fiscal year.
In its Economic Recovery Growth Plan, ERPG, the ministry says it is committed to “awareness creation and mobilization for tree planting, wildlife and biodiversity (including celebration of international days of forest, wild life and biodiversity conservation, birthday, World Bamboo Day and World Wetland Day,” spending over N71 million.
Nigeria joined hundreds of parties to agree on boosting national carbon credit to reduce the impact of climate change.
Global fight against global warming has led the Conference of Parties to agree on respective Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs, commonly referred to as the Paris Agreement of 2015.
