By Cross Udo, Abuja
The Presidency yesterday said it has outlined measures to reduce expenditures at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Conference of Parties (COP29), taking place in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in November. This is in line with President Bola Tinubu’s promise to reduce the cost of governance.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Ajuri Ngelale, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the presidential villa in Abuja.
Ajuri explained that the measure would save the government about N10bn from the 11-day event.
He said reducing official expenditures is necessary to avoid the embarrassment of COP28, which took place in Dubai last November.
Among the measures to save funds is that the government will no longer hire a pavilion, which costs $500,000, while a delegation office will be set up inside the premises.
He added that some wasteful platforms that give rise to consultancies and subcontracts for lighting and other technology provisions will not be used as they can be provided directly by the National Council on Climate Change.
According to him, the cut down will be achieved by providing and implementing the climate accountability and transparency portal.
The presidential envoy said, “Many Nigerians would recall that as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Federal Government of Nigeria’s delegation to COP 28 in Dubai, UAE, last year, there were some elements of outcry concerning the size of the delegation.
“There was deliberate misinformation, but the truth is, we also found that there were government officials who had no business at that meeting and some with significant delegations.
“And given this, His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu, had approved an audit of that exercise to fully understand and ascertain what happened and what must be done to ensure that it never repeats itself in this country.
“And as a result of that, within the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action, which I lead, and in the Office of the Director General, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change in the person of Dr Nkeiruka Madukwe an exercise has been concluded detailing precisely what the expenditure profile was of COP 28 to ensure that we implement measures that would ensure that whatever is spent ahead of COP 29 has a function that will lead to the economic empowerment of our people and the economic development of our nation.
“And it is given that I’m here to inform the Nigerian people that the National Council on Climate Change, in collaboration with my office, has established the climate accountability and transparency portal, which will, among other things, ensure that all members of delegation across ministries, departments, and agencies and including even the legislative branch of government, will be captured on a transparent portal.
“This will mean that Nigerians will have full and real-time access to the numbers of those who are attending and those who the government is sponsoring COP 29. This will also ensure that anyone attending this conference has an economic imperative to be at that conference, engaging with companies, multilateral partners, and stakeholders who will attract finance and opportunity into the country for the benefit of our people.
“Anyone who is not engaging in activities directly linked to the attraction of business opportunity of finance into the country will not be part of the federal government’s delegation this time.”
He further said, “In addition to the portal, we found through our audit that during Cop 28 in Dubai, significant expenditures were made for the provision of platforms that proved to be, in our view, wasteful.
“So ahead of COP 29, 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 on-site delegation office within the conference complex.”
“And this we will do; we have found that by taking that option, the nearly $500,000 showcase pavilion purchased for last year’s COP 28 will no longer be an item of expenditure in COP 29. In addition, the delegate’s office that we will be using to conduct bilateral meetings and other meetings that otherwise would have been undertaken in the showcase pavilion will be an office that will cost less than 10 percent 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.”
He said that his office ensures that the country can avoid getting involved in high-end purchases of pavilion spaces when people grapple with economic difficulties.
“We have put ourselves in a position to save this country over N10bn on this 11-day event in November, COP 29. 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, to resolve them COP 29 is just the beginning,” he added.
