2018 budget: FG cautioned against nuclear plants, carbon fuels

The Citizens Wealth Platform (CWP) has cautioned the Federal Government against nuclear power plants as a source of alternate power generation of boosting the existing power inputs in the 2018 budget.

The Lead Director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) Barrister Eze Onyekpere made the call yesterday in Abuja at a stakeholder validation meeting on the 2018 budget preparation process.

He also urged the government to increase the two percent in the 2017 budget to five percent in the 2018 budget and the increase going to capital expenditure and which is just 50 percent of the nation’s commitment under the Declaration.

“Our first focus is to ensure that the some key sectors reflect a low carbon input into their budget framework. Specifically, we are intervening in agriculture, power and transport. We have experts who have prepared pre-budget memoranda for us to use to engage the relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government. We do not expect a lot of resources to inorganic fertilizers and chemicals, motorized boreholes, generators and plants that guzzle carbon fuel.

He said many of the countries currently using operating nuclear power plants are shutting them down including Germany which has shut down 70 percent of the plants and Maputo planned to shut down all before 2020.

He said, “One of the reasons why the advanced countries were shutting down the plants was due to lack of ways of disposing the nuclear wastes, which can only be stored now despite the advances in technology and recycling. The advancement of Russia and Japan did not help when the Chernobyl and the Fukushima nuclear disasters occurred, let alone Nigeria.”

On transportation, Onyekpere suggested the continued enforcement of the ban on importation of vehicles over 15 years old and possible review of the ban to vehicles not more than 10 years old among other measure to secure the wellbeing and development of Nigeria especially in the coming post oil-relevant era.