Nigerian govt releases N750bn 2017 capital budget

Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Finance said it has started the release of N750 billion capital appropriation in the 2017 budget to ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

Kemi Adeosun, the minister of finance, disclosed this Tuesday while appearing before the Senate committee on finance as part of the 2018 Budget Defence. She 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, Udoma Udoma, minister of budget and national planning, 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, Adeosun said ongoing capital projects from the 2017 budget would be rolled over under the 2018 approved appropriation of N2.43 trillion.

Nigeria ranks 115 in Forbes best countries for business in 2018 on poor trade freedom, tax burden

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

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 percent performance rating, against 62.26 percent by overheads, and 50.49 percent by capital.