Finance Minister Says Government ‘Diligently’ Implementing 2013 Budget

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Tuesday said contrary to the perception in some quarters, the executive had been diligently implementing the 2013 Appropriation Act and was not waiting for the amendment it proposed to the National Assembly.

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala disclosed this when she met with the Joint House Committees on Appropriation and Finance to clarify some of her statements on the state of the economy.

The minister debunked the accusations that she predicted the collapse of the economy, stressing that she only warned of the consequences of the non-passage of the budget amendment bill currently pending before the National Assembly.

She also reiterated her earlier position that the federal government may run into difficulties paying salaries by September unless the National Assembly restored the N38 billion removed from the budget during its passage.

On the implementation of the 2013 budget, she added that so far, N600 billion had been released as the capital component of the budget while N585. 7 billion had been cash backed and therefore available to the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

Similarly, she disclosed that the capital component of the budget had attained 67 percent utilisation.

The Minister said N400 billion was released in the first quarter while N200 billion was released in the second quarter of the year.

However, she said the economy was facing challenges on two fronts, namely: dwindling oil revenue and low receipts from Customs duties.

On the first area of concern, she said the economy was suffering due to the problem of pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft and frequent shutdown of oil pipelines by oil firms once the pipes were compromised by the vandals.

The Minister said given the outlook of the global economy, particularly with the discovery of shale oil and the cut down on Nigeria’s oil exports to the United States, there was need for the country to take seriously the need for the diversification of its economy.

She hinted that the diversification had started already with the growth recorded in local rice production, adding that it was also this growth that has reduced the importation of food into the country and reduction in revenue from the Nigeria Customs.

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala allayed the fears of the lawmakers over their constituency projects, saying that N50 billion out of the N100 billion allocated to the constituency projects have been released to the MDAs that are making procurements for the execution of the projects.

The balance of the constituency project funds, she said, is currently in a special account at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and could be accessed as soon as the MDAs and the designated contractors were prepared to execute these projects.