Nigerian govt. releases N750bn 2017 capital budget – Adeosun

The Federal Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday it had started the release of N750 billion capital appropriation in the 2017 budget to ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs.

The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who disclosed this while appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance as part of the 2018 Budget Defence, said most accounts of the MDAs were already being credited with their approved allocations.

“The accounts of the MDAs are being credited as I speak,” the Minister told the lawmakers. “If the MDAs check their bank balances, they will have balances different from what they were before.”

While reviewing the performance of the 2017 budget when he presented analysis of the 2018 Budget proposal, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udoma, said out of the capital projects appropriation of about N2.174 trillion, only N450 billion was actually spent as at October 31.

He said priority attention was paid to critical ongoing infrastructural projects, such as power, roads, rail, and agriculture.

At the Senate briefing, Mrs. Adeosun said ongoing capital projects from the 2017 budget would be rolled over under the 2018 approved appropriation of N2.43 trillion.

The minister told the senators that she was optimistic that with the release of capital budget, Nigerians should expect that many of the ongoing projects by the MDAs would be completed as planned.

Mrs. Adeosun, who used the opportunity to thank the leadership and members of the National Assembly for their support in approving the issuance of Eurobond, said some of the funds were being deployed in the execution of the 2017 budget, while the balance was being used to refinance the country’s existing debt.

Similarly, in his presentation, the Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, Ahmed Idris, said out of a total appropriation of N2.988 billion for recurrent expenditure, about N664 million went for overheads, while N792 million was for capital.

Out of these figures, N2.84 billion was actually released for recurrent expenditure, while about N404 million was released for overheads, and N400 million for capital.

For the overall budget performance for 2017, the AGF said of the three components of the Office of AGF, personnel recorded about 94.92 per cent performance rating, against 62.26 per cent by overheads, and 50.49 per cent by capital.