Leon Usigbe
28 May 2008
Lagos — MINISTER of Finance, Dr Shamsudeen Usman, announced yesterday that the Federal Government had so far released the sum of N1,068,033,902,493 from the 2008 budget allocation to ministries, departments and agencies.
This amount is the value of warrants for releases from January to May 2008. He spoke on a day government announced a new Comptroller-General of the Customs Service, Mr Ahmed Ali Kwajoli.
The Minister said about N702.1 billion was collected by the Federal Government from January to March, representing about 55.8 per cent of the expected revenue while about N431.7 billion was released for capital projects in the months of April and May.
Dr. Usman was testifying before the House of Representatives joint committees on Finance, Appropriation, Justice, National Planning and Due Process which summoned him last week. He blamed lack of understanding between the legislature and his ministry for the suspicion created in the implementation of the 2008 Budget.
He justified the release of capital votes earlier in the year when the budget had not been signed into law, saying the ministry relied on Section 82 of the Constitution so that government business would not grind to a halt.
His words: "If the Appropriation Bill has not been passed, the President may authorise the release of money from the consolidated revenue for the period not more than six months. Government business should not stop because the approvals are being sought. By the interpretation we got, it does not say only recurrent but it says monies so that government business does not stop. We took extra care so that we don't violate the constitution. It had to be projects approved by the National Assembly and it has to be ongoing projects, projects in the proposal that we sent to the National Assembly."
Dr. Usman dismissed allegation of selective application of the budget provisions, saying since the budget in operation was the one assented to by President Umaru Yar'Adua in April, his Ministry had ensured strict implementation of the provisions contrary to the impression haboured by the lawmakers.
According to him, the circular was written in his absence by the Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Remi Babalola.
"The circular was signed by the Minister of State. I take responsibility but since my colleague is here I will ask him to explain since he signed but like I said I take responsibility," he told the committees.
Mr. Babalola speaking on the circular which allegedly directed Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to get approval from the Budget Office before implementing capital projects said the idea was to ensure a strict implementation of the budget.
He said: "We believed the major challenge we have is misunderstanding. On the 14th of April, I was part of the team with the President when the budget was signed. Since that day, it is the same budget that was uploaded on the website and the FEC, all MDAs were directed to that website.
"There was the need for clarification in the Budget Office because some of the projects monitoring and evaluation cannot be done just like that. It is a situation where we were trying to hold the MDAs responsible for non-implementation of projects," he stressed.
Mr. Babalola said insinuations about the circular "are completely at variance with what we are saying. We are putting a process in place to ensure that they have access to funds that have been released."
He added that "what we did is to make sure that if the contracts are awarded they should make sure that they inform the budget office. There was no new project. The letter states that you are to seek clearance on all capital projects."
FG appoints Kwajoli Customs CG
Meanwhile, the Federal Government yesterday announced the appointment of a new Comptroller-General (C-G) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
He is Mr Ahmed Ali Kwajoli, who was Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs (Investigation and Inspection).
Kwajoli succeeds Mr Buba Jacob Gyang, who was appointed C-G in 2003.
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