Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has declared that he has no regrets serving in the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.

Mohammed said it was a privilege for him to be called upon to serve his fatherland and he had been discharging his duties effectively.

The minister spoke on Tuesday in Abuja when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation to defend the ministry’s 2023 budget.

Responding to a question by a member of the committee, the minister said the ministry was not adequately funded to discharge its mandate of management of the image and reputation of the country and the promotion of its cultures.

He said with the advent of the new media, his job, like that of other information managers, became more cumbersome.

He expressed, regret, however, that there was no corresponding funding to match new problems being created by the social media.

He said while he was complaining that the N1.072 billion capital expenditure allocated to the information sector of his ministry in the 2022 budget was inadequate, it was slashed to a meagre N345.64 million in the 2023 budget proposal.

“It is really a difficult situation and I do not know how we are going to handle it.

“In times of challenges like this, that our country is going through, we need the information ministry to be fully equipped to properly inform the public

“This is the time the people need information and the voice of government should be heard on what we are doing in the areas of security, infrastructure and other sectors.

“We also need to tell the world what the government had done in the last seven years and we need fund for all these.

“I also believe that the 30 per cent cut in the 2023 budget proposal across board should not apply to the ministry, rather it should be increased because of the importance of information dissemination now than ever,’ the minister said.

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In the 2023 budget, N4.131 billion was proposed for personnel while N959,199 million was proposed as Overhead of both the Information and Culture sectors of the ministry.

The minister said notwithstanding the challenges, the ministry recorded tremendous achievements in the past seven years when he had been the minister.

“What I would consider the biggest achievement is deepening information flow between the government and the governed.

“Democracy is about the participation of all citizens, and nothing enhances citizens’ participation more than enhancing a two-way communication between the government and the governed,” he said.

The Star