Tinubu administration’s cost-cutting efforts will save Nigeria over N10 billion on the upcoming 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action, Ajuri Ngelale, stated this yesterday at the State House, Abuja.
He announced plans to ensure prudent spending during the conference.
Ngelale said the government has opted out of purchasing a showcase pavilion, which cost nearly $500,000 at COP28 in Dubai, and will instead utilize the delegation office within the conference complex for bilateral meetings.
This decision alone, according to Ngelale, who was accompanied to the briefing by the Director-General of the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC), Dr Nkiruka Maduekwe, will save nearly 90% of the pavilion’s cost.
Additionally, the administration has implemented the Climate Accountability and Transparency Portal, which will eliminate wasteful expenditures on consultancies and subcontracts for lighting and technological provisions.
He said these services will now be provided directly by the Secretariat of the National Council on Climate Change.
Ngelale attributed the cost-cutting measures to President Tinubu’s commitment to transparency and accountability, saying, “this is the change that Nigerians have asked for. This is the change that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is giving to them”.
“In addition to the portal, we’ve found, through our audit, that during COP28 in Dubai, there were significant expenditures made for the provision of platforms that proved to be, in our view, wasteful. So ahead of COP29 we have resolved and concluded that there will be no showcase pavilion as part of the federal government of Nigeria’s cost reduction efforts.
“We recognize that what can be achieved in a showcase pavilion can be achieved in a far more economically efficient mode by effectively utilizing the delegation office that is on site within the conference complex and this we will do. We have found that by taking that option the nearly $500,000 showcase pavilion that was purchased for last year’s COP28 will no longer be an item of expenditure in COP29.
“In addition, the delegates’ office that we will be using to conduct bilateral meetings and other meetings that otherwise would have been conducted in the showcase pavilion we will be conducting in the delegates office that will cost less than 10% of the cost of the showcase pavilion. This is the change that Nigerians have asked for. This is the change that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is giving to them.
“Furthermore, while we ensure that we are not getting involved in high-end purchases of pavilion spaces at a time when our people are grappling with economic difficulty, we are also ensuring that some of these wasteful platforms that give rise to consultancies and subcontracts for lighting, for technological provision that these are elements that can be provided directly from the Secretariat of the National Council on Climate Change.
“With all of the savings through the provision and implementation of the Climate Accountability and Transparency Portal, as well as our active cut down of expenditure items that were found in the COP28 expenditure profile, we have put ourselves in a position to save this country over N10 billion on this 11 Day event in November, COP29.”
“So the President will continue to ensure that Nigerians have confidence that in all of our activities moving forward, we have conducted comprehensive audits of where we have gone wrong in the past with a view to resolving them. COP 29 is just the beginning”.
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