The National Population Commission, NPC, says it needs N17 billion to successfully conduct the 2016 national census.

Chairman of the commission, Eze Duru-Iheoma, said this on Thursday in Abuja when he appeared before the House of Representatives committee on Population to defend the 2014 budget of the commission.

He said that the commission requested for N34.56 billion as capital allocation in the 2014 budget out of which the Budget Office approved N6.2 billion.

He said that the amount approved by the Budget Office was inadequate to carry out activities for the successful conduct of the 2016 census.

He said that construction of ICT centres across the 36 states of the federation would gulp N5.7 billion but that the Budget Office allocated only N203 million for the ICT centres.

He said there was need to refurbish and equip NPC offices across the states and to do that, more funds would be required; hence he appealed to the committee to intervene in the matter.

Acting chairman of the committee, Abdulrazaq Zaki (PDP, Bauchi), promised that the committee would intervene where necessary.