The implementation level of the 2010 budget by the Federal Government has reached 50 per cent, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, has said.
Aganga said that considering the significantly expansionary 2010 budget, the current 50 per cent implementation level exceeded the previous year‘s budget performance.
He spoke with our correspondent on the telephone on Wednesday.
According to him, the government has implemented recurrent expenditure and overheads 100 per cent.
He said, ”Right from the beginning, we had an expansionary budget. Both recurrent and capital expenditure were both about 85 per cent more than last year‘s. On income, we have met and exceeded the target in total. We have implemented 100 per cent of the recurrent expenditure and overheads.
”We are in the fourth quarter and we have done a sizeable amount of the capital expenditure, close to 50 per cent. Bear in mind that this 50 per cent exceeds the amount that was done last year because this budget was significantly expansionary.”
The Senate and House of Representatives committees on Appropriations and Finance had held a closed-door meeting with the Economic Management Team of the Federal Government on Tuesday on the heels of the dissatisfaction expressed by the National Assembly over alleged ”non-implementation” of the 2010 budget.
The House of Representatives had, last Wednesday, observed that the capital component of the N4.6tn budget had been poorly implemented, barely 65 days to the end of the year.
The National Assembly in March adjusted the capital component of the N4.6tn harmonised budget to N1.8tn.
The minister, however, said the 2010 budget implementation level would be higher since it was still ongoing, adding that the government was ”working hard to do more on the capital side.”
On how satisfactory the budget performance was so far, Aganga said he was satisfied with the level recorded, pointing out the peculiarities of the 2010 election year.
According to him, ”This is an election year where we had to accommodate N87.7bn budget for the Independent National Electoral Commission, which came in as supplementary.
”This is the year when salaries were increased by 53 per cent, effective from July, and these have been paid. We‘ve done extremely well.”
However, concerns have been raised that, with the 2011 elections around the corner, the clamour for budget implementation may not be entirely pecuniary.
The level of implementation, according to stakeholders, must be reflected in growth projects that can impact positively on the economy.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, had put the 2009 budget implementation level at 85 per cent, linking the high performance to the extension of the budget cycle from December to March. This was far higher than the 2008 budget‘s 33 per cent implementation score.
But stakeholders had said that the realities on the ground at that time did not reflect such high level of performance in 2009.
Aganga also reiterated that the Federal Government was committed to reducing the unemployment rate in Nigeria considerably over a period of one year.
He said, ”Give us about two weeks, this will become clear. It is because of this commitment that we set up a private sector committee to look into the problem of unemployment. We have the draft report of the committee.
”They will do a presentation to the Economic Management Team and we will take it up from there. We are focusing on the labour-intensive sectors like agriculture and construction.”
No comments:
Post a Comment