Zainab Ahmed: N1.74trn released for projects in 2020 — 89% of capital budget

Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, budget and national planning, says N1.74 trillion have been disbursed to ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) for capital expenditure as of December 2020.

Ahmed was speaking on Monday at an interactive session with the leadership of the national assembly.

According to the minister, the figure represents 89 percent of the capital component of 2020 budget, out of which N118.37 billion was also released for COVID-19 capital expenditure.

“We are making progress, the impact of COVID-19 had interrupted the process, but we intend to have a 100 percent implementation,” Ahmed said.

She added that complaints over the delayed release of funds to implement capital projects have lessened.

“I think the complaint was earlier in the year when we were trying to transfer the balances. As far as I know, in the past three weeks, I haven’t heard any such complaints and we have been able to address them,” she said.

“As far as I know in the past three weeks, I haven’t heard any such complaints and we have been able to address them.

“When we started the transfers, we couldn’t transfer to some agencies because of some limitations in the system, but we have since been able to transfer the capital component that is being utilised by the agencies budget to the system.”

In his remarks, Orji Uzor Kalu, senate chief whip, commended Ahmed on the capital performance of the 2020 budget.

“I want to commend the minister and her team because this is the first time in the history of Nigeria that by December 31, we are having 89 percent performance expenditure of the budget,” he said.

“It has never happened before, last year was the very first. The budget had been going 49 percent, 27 percent, this means from what the Senate President was asking, it means by March, we should be looking at implementing the budget 100 percent.” 

In December 2020, the senate approved an extension of the capital component of the 2020 budget till March 31, 2021.