Alarm over Nigeria Budget

NINE months into  the fiscal year, the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has stated that there is no record of implementation as far as the 2011 budget is concerned.

Okonjo-Iweala, addressing a press conference at the Federal Ministry of Finance conference room in Abuja on Sunday, stated that the N4.6 trillion budget was a problematic one.

According to her, the 2011 budget, before being finally signed into law, had to move from the National Assembly to the presidency a couple of times.

As of now, the  minister explained that no one could really ascertain the level of implementation of the budget, because there was no record on it.

However, she disclosed that the 2012 budget, currently being packaged, would be different in terms of content and delivery as it would be in line with the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan .

Giving assurance that the 2012 budget would be implemented faithfully, she said the presidency would cooperate with the members of the National Assembly to ensure safe delivery of the budget.

Noting that  good budget implementation is a priority of President  Jonathan’s administration, the minister added that  the 2012 budget and others  would be fully implemented.

She said unlike before when so many projects were undertaken at one go, only  projects that could be implemented would make the budget in line with the medium term policy of the government.

Besides, she said a budget implementation team that was  assigned to track all the projects contained in the budget had been put in place to ensure good budget implementation.

In the spirit of transparency, the finance minister disclosed that the Federal Government had commenced the publication of statutory allocations to the three tiers of government, so that Nigerians would know how much accrued to each tier of government within a period of time.

For now, she said  booklets on statutory allocations to the federal, state and local governments in the last 18 months were ready and would be given  to the public this week.

Debunking the allegation of corruption levelled against her by an online publication, Dr Okonjo-Iweala said it  was false and  “a baseless fiction totally devoid of even a semblance of truth.”