2024 Budget: National Assembly Frowns At 43% Execution•••Calls For More Funds To MDAs For Construction Of Schools, Others
•By Oyeniyi Awojoodu
ABUJA – The National Assembly has frowned at the 43 percent capital projects execution in the 2024 budget, describing it as unsatisfactory.
It also expressed dissatisfaction at what it referred to as the huge discrepancies in the size of the Recurrent Expenditure relative to Capital Expenditure and the low level of fund releases for capital projects for Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs in the 2024 Budget that is ongoing.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, had submitted the report of the economic team of the administration which indicated that overall the 2024 budget performance was 43% with Recurrent expenditure achieving 100% while capital budget stood at 25% performance.
Making known the position of the National Assembly, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Solomon Adeola and his counterpart at the House of Representatives, Honourable Abubakar Birchi, urged the economic team to urgently release more funds to mark up capital projects in the budget.
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A statement by Kayode Odunaro, Media Adviser to Senator Adeola, revealed that the lawmakers insisted that this would help jump start economic and infrastructural developments that would make people feel the impact of the administration.
The statement argued that only a small percentage of the people are impacted by the recurrent expenditure provision in the fiscal policy.
According to it, the lawmakers made their position known at a joint sitting of the Chairmen of the Senate and House Committees on Appropriations, and the Presidential Economic Team on consideration of the 2025 Appropriation Bill which took place at the National Assembly in Abuja.
Speaking on the issue, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation said he is an advocate of drastically reducing the ratio of recurrent expenditure to capital in the budget from the present 80% for recurrent and 20% for capital to at least 60% to 40%.
He stressed that capital projects in the budget and their implementation remains a major driver of the economy.
“Capital releases to MDAs are the major drivers of economic activities within the nation. Non release of funds for capital projects is a major issue in the performance of 2024 Budget so far and it is desirable that funds are released to prevent abandoned projects and ensure the success of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president,” he stated.
Senator Adeola said it will not be cheery news for MDAs to come for their 2025 budget defense with record of non-performance of their core mandates as contained in capital budget stressing that within the period of the 2024 budget still running, effort should be made by Finance Ministry to release funds for capital projects.
While concurring with Adeola`s position, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Hon. Birchi, called for the release of more funds to MDAs to execute such capital projects as schools, roads, dams, hospitals and other social infrastructure.
He observed that items such as debt repayment can be restructured in the interim.
According to him, “Most of the items of recurrent expenditure which takes a huge part of our budget and is implemented 100% will only directly affect about 10% of our population while capital projects of the MDAs will directly affect majority of over 200 million Nigerians in areas of social infrastructures provisions like hospitals, schools, roads, energy and similar.”
The Minister of Finance confirmed that they have outstanding capital releases awaiting funding, regretting however that the country cannot go back to the old ways of spending money that is not there to avoid backlash.
He pointed at recent events in France and Germany, as he revealed that there are warrants awaiting payment for capital projects.
Another member of the economic team, the Minister of Budget and Planning, Abubakar Bagudu, said the huge recurrent expenditure in our budgets is a function of our level of development and some of the societal challenges we are facing at this moment.
He added that some of the recurrent are expended by the military in its campaign against insecurity, as he revealed that these campaigns can be felt in improved agricultural activities, food production and other aconomic activities.
The Director General of the Budget Office, Dr. Tanimu Yakubu also attributed the huge recurrent expenditures to the legacies of past administrations.
This is even as he pointed out that President Bola Tinubu inherited recurrent expenses such as unpaid pensions and gratuities which it has paid.
Dr Yakubu hinted on the need for a legislation to limit the size of recurrent expenditure in the budget.
The meeting which had in attendance the Minister of State for Finance Dr, Doris Uzoka-Anite and the permanent secretaries of Ministries of Finance and Ministry of Budget and National Planning also deliberated on the issues of waivers and tax holidays which seems to reduce revenues for the government.
•INDEPNDENTNG.