National Population Commission, NPC on Wednesday declared that N532.7billion will be needed by it to conduct the national census in April 2023.

Chairman of the commission, Alhaji Nasir Isa Kwarra disclosed this to members of the Senate Committee on National Population and Identity Management during the 2023 budget defence session with the committee.

The N532.7billion according to the NPC boss , is purely proposal for conduct of the 2023 census which he said would be digitally done.

“Aside the N10billion budgetary proposal for 2023 fiscal year earmarked for NPC, the sum of N532. 795, 604, 726billion is estimated for conduct of 2023 census.

“NPC is ready to re- write the history of census in Nigeria by making the 2023 one not only accurate, credible, reliable but acceptable to all Nigerians,” he said.

He added that the proposed sum for conduct of 2023 census, covers post enumeration survey and that the exercise will be a great departure from the past in terms of keying into the issue of climate change.

In the 2023 budgetary proposal for the agency, Kwarra said envelope of N1.05billion was earmarked for capital expenditure , N655million for overhead and N8.6billion for personnel.

For the 2022 fiscal year , the NPC boss said a total of N206.85billion was appropriated for the commission out which N107.7billion was earmarked for capital expenditure, N615million for overhead and N7.8billion for personnel cost.

However, the chairman of the Committee , Senator Sahabi Ya’u (APC Zamfara North) , told the NPC boss to furnish the committee with details of projects executed with the 2022 appropriation line by line and those proposed for the 2023 fiscal year.

Request by the NPC boss to decorate Chairman and members of the committee as 2023 Census Ambassadors at the beginning of the session was however turned down.