Nigerian Senate has summoned the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and her counterpart in the Ministry of Budget and Planning, Udo Udoma.
The ministers were summoned to brief the lawmakers on the cause of the inadequate releases and steps being taken to expedite release of funds for the capital component of the 2017 Appropriation Act.
This followed a motion sponsored on Tuesday by the Senator representing Lagos East, Senator Gbenga Ashafa.
The motion was captioned “Inadequate releases in the 2017 budget and the need to expedite releases in order to stimulate the Economy”.
Senator Ashafa cautioned that inadequate releases from the Federal Government to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to finance their capital projects might return the country to recession.
The Senate, on its Facebook page, quoted Ashafa in his motion as saying: “While the total size of the 2017 budget tagged as the budget of Economic Recovery and Growth is in the sum of N7,441,175,486,758 (Seven Trillion, Four Hundred and Forty-One Billion, One Hundred and Seventy-Five Million, Four Hundred and Eighty-Six Thousand, Seven Hundred and Fifty-Eight Naira), the capital component of the budget is in the sum of N2,177,866,775,867 (Two Trillion, One Hundred and Seventy-Seven Billion, Eight-Hundred and Sixty-Six Million, Seven Hundred and Seventy-Five Thousand, Eight Hundred and Sixty-Seven Naira) only, for the year ending on December 31, 2017, according to the Appropriation Act of 2017.”
Senator Ashafa, however, expressed concern that since the 2017 budget was assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari in June 2017, only about N310 Billion Naira has been released by the Federal Government to the MDAs as funding for capital projects, a figure he said was too low to stimulate the economy.
He noted that the livelihood of millions of Nigerians is directly connected with the funding of the budget and execution of projects.
The senator explained that the more projects are executed, the more Nigerians would be engaged at various levels of the employment value chain, stressing the need for expedited funding of the capital component of the budget.
Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who seconded the motion, commended Senator Ashafa and urged his colleagues to support the motion.
The lawmakers then resolved to invite Mrs Adeosun and Senator Udoma to appear before the Senate in plenary to brief the Upper House on reasons for the inadequate releases, in accordance to the prayers of the said motion.
