The Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, said on Tuesday, that N749bn had been released, so far, from the 2010 budget, to ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government to implement capital projects.
The N4.6tn budget has a capital vote of N1.7tn (about 30 per cent of the budget), while the lion‘s share of 70 per cent is to take care of government‘s bureaucracy and overheads.
Aganga had appeared before members of the House of Representatives in plenary to answer questions on ”selective capital budget implementation.”
The minister explained that, though, the capital budget had been cash-backed to the tune of N749bn, only “53 per cent or 54 per cent” (more than half of the N749bn) had been accessed by the MDAs.
When asked why the MDAs could not access the money, now in the custody of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the minister replied that he could not speak for other ministers and heads of the MDAs.
According to him, his duty as the finance minister is to issue warrants for the release of the votes, which he claimed he had done in respect of the N749bn.
He added that by the end of November, capital releases would have been N900bn.
When pressed further, Aganga said it was possible that some agencies were facing difficulties scaling the due process and procurement hurdles put in place by the Public Procurement Act.
He claimed that the government was performing well in capital releases, adding, ”We are not far off (from the N1.7tn) despite the delays in realising some of the funding items of the budget.”
Aganga told the House that the government achieved its projected oil revenue by more than 60 per cent, while ”oil production has gone up as a result of the peace initiative in the Niger Delta.”
But he admitted that a shortfall in projected Internally Generated Revenue by N200bn posed funding challenges to projects the capital votes were meant for.
He also recalled that the government had to bend backwards to fund the additional request of N87.7bn by the Independent National Electoral Commission to enable it to plan for the 2011 elections.
”We also started the power reform programme, which required another extra funding, and another N57.7bn to pay for the monetisation benefits of some public sector workers”, the minister added.
Aganga informed the House that government had expected revenue from the privatisation of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited, which had not materialised because the firm had not been sold.
Most lawmakers, however, held the view that the budget had not made any impact on the lives of the masses of the country.
The Chairman of the Committee on Gas Resources, Mr. Igo Aguma, observed that while on paper, N749bn of capital votes had been released, but in reality, “only about N300bn had been accessed by the MDAs.”
Aguma said, “It means, by his own admission, that the bulk of the money is lying there in the CBN. Why is it impossible for the MDAs to access the funds?”
He noted that, with only N300bn in circulation so far, ”it means that you have just achieved 20 per cent implementation of the budget.”
However, Aganga tried to pass the buck to the National Assembly for raising the capital budget, from the initial proposal of N1.2tn by the Executive, to N1.7tn.
He was shouted down by the lawmakers, who insisted that it was the same Executive that adjusted the budget seven times before it was eventually passed by the Legislature.
The development came as the minister hinted that the Executive was considering the option of extending the implementation of the budget to March 2011.
Source:http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201011101275917
No comments:
Post a Comment