The Minister of State for Budget and Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed has confirmed that the FG has “set aside” about N280 billion out of the N350 billion earmarked for capital projects in the 2016 Federal Budget.
She confirmed this in a budget review and inclusive monitoring workshop organised by BudgIT in Abuja, said, “The release of the N350bn is ongoing, but of course, we are not releasing the budget just based on giving out funds with respect to allocations. We need to scrutinise the projects; it took some time, but we have sent about N280bn for projects that have been scrutinised and the release will be for special projects. “And recommendation was on projects that are ongoing, except for a few exceptional circumstances. We are not releasing funds for new projects.”
She also confirmed that the names of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies to benefit from the fund release as follows;
“We have sent to the Ministry of Finance for up to about 50 MDAs or 60, but I can tell you that Power, Works and Housing; Agriculture; Interior; Education; Information and Environment are part of the ministries that we have sent to. We have reviewed their projects, approved them and have sent them to the Ministry of Finance. There are about 60 MDAs already in the first batch. We have another batch of about 30 where the screening process has been concluded and we should be able to send that today (Tuesday) or tomorrow (Wednesday).”
