• Senators slam Okonjo-Iweala over poor implementation
From ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI, Abuja
Senate yesterday kicked against the Federal Government’s low provision for capital expenditure in the N4.357 trillion 2015 budget.
In the new budget presently in the National Assembly, recurrent expenditure will gulp N2,616007,426,233 with only N627 billion for capital projects.
Some senators have faulted the figures, insisting that only N387 billion was allocated for capital projects.
Shortly after Senate President David Mark announced that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators would meet yesterday evening in the residence of Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), the chamber resolved into a closed session.
Behind closed doors, senators were reportedly angry that many ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) have zero or low budgets for capital projects for this year.
A lawmaker from the North-central, who doesn’t want to be named, wondered why a strategic ministry, which is supposed to intervene in welfare matters for Nigerians, allocated N12 billion for recurrent expenditure but had zero allocation for capital projects.
Consequently, the 53 sub-committees of the Committee on Appropriation were directed to liaise with the various MDAs to reduce their recurrent expenditures to make more funds available for capital projects.
The chamber resolved to carry out the constitutional legislative duties within the remainder of their tenure to ensure that government officials do not deliberately hoard funds meant for projects.
Besides, most senators blamed low implementation of the budget on the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. They accused her of “deliberately drawing back the wheel of the nation’s progress.”
Also, Chairman of the Committee on Establishment and Public Service, Senator Aloysius Etok, described as shameful, the manner budgetary allocations were released to MDAs.”The rate of budgetary releases is shameful and unacceptable. For us to sit down to plan annual budget and at the end of the day, only 41 per cent performance is implemented is like cutting short the expectations of the people.”
The committee, which took on the Head of Service of the Federation (HoSF), Danladi Kefesi, Federal Housing Staff Loan Board, Public Service Institute of Nigeria, Administrative Staff College of Nigeria and Public Civil Service Reform Bureau, also expressed concern over zero capital budget.
Kefesi told the committee that N11.5 billion was budgeted for his office. Out of this, he said N5.1 billion was budgeted for personnel, N1.9 billion for overheads and N4.1billion for capital costs.
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