The dwindling revenue currently experienced by the country has led the Ministry of Finance into slashing the 2015 budget of the Ministry of Works from the N100 billion it was the previous fiscal year to N11 billion.
Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, who disclosed this yesterday while defending his ministry’s budget estimates for the fiscal year before the Senate, explained that the finance ministry took the action in response to “the economic realities on the ground”.
Onolememen went on to reveal that out of the 210 ongoing road projects in the country, only 33 had been provided for in view of the lean allocation to the ministry. He added that the budget was insufficient for contractors to carry out their work progressively.
Regretting that the ministry of works had always been owned outstanding budgets funds since 2011, the Minister said, “Only N45, 682, 844, 395.00 was released for the works ministry out of 2014 capital appropriation of N98, 814,368,704. This leaves a balance of N53,131,524, 309 not released as of December 2014. It is important to emphasize that the performance of the ministry would have been considerably enhanced if the outstanding budgeted funds of N53 billion had been released to the ministry.
“More importantly, if the cumulative outstanding budgeted funds of N203, 392, 075, 947.25 for the period spanning 2011 to 2014 had been released, the total indebtedness would have been brought down from N230bn to N27bn,” he added.
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