Abuja — Action Congress (AC) has described as failure of governance, FG's claim to have realised N400 billion from unspent capital budget of ministries and other government agencies.

AC said government should not showcase such as a sign of prudence or successful anti-corruption war.

"We are shocked that President Umaru Yar'Adua could celebrate this - in his independence day broadcast - as a sign of his administration's effort to sanitise the financial and budgetary process or an indication of the FG's zero-tolerance for corruption.

"This is because claiming to have saved such a huge amount of money at a time that our infrastructural facilities are begging for repairs, our hospitals lack drugs and majority of our citizens are going to bed hungry, is a simplistic way of looking at governance.

"This reminds us of a popular Hausa proverb that says it is useless for a hungry man to sleep in a room full of grains, because the mere presence of the grains will not quench his hunger, " AC noted in a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

The statement noted that government was being unrealistic to expect that with the budgets sometimes passed six months into the year, ministries and agencies could successfully execute their capital projects before the year runs out.

"In some cases, the capital projects were still on-going and contractors yet to be paid, when government ordered return of unspent capital budgets, throwing contractors into turmoil.

"Instead of putting in place the mechanism to ensure early passage of the budget and a successful monitoring and implementation of various capital projects of ministries, parastatals and agencies, government is rushing to beat its chest for what amounts to failure of governance, the inability of ministries and others to carry out their capital projects," the party said.