Federal Govt has spent N3.9tn of 2016 Budget

Kemi Adeosun, the honourable minister of finance has disclosed that at the end of September, N3.9tn out of the N6.1tn budgeted for the year has been released.

The Director Special Projects in the ministry, who represented the minister, Mr. Mohammed Dikwa, a stakeholders’ forum on reducing the cost of governance in Abuja on Tuesday said only 18 per cent of the releases was for capital expenses against 82 per cent for recurrent expenditure.

In a paper, “Public Sector Financial Management Reforms as a Strategy for Cutting Cost of Governance in Nigeria”, Adeosun said that the releases to the productive sectors of the economy remained the highest in recent times.

She said that Nigeria’s inability to finance most of its development projects had been largely attributed to high cost of governance in the form of large recurrent expenditure.

She said, “In order to grow the economy and fasten the rate of growth and development, there is the need to reverse the trend.”

She said it was important to “allocate through the budgeting process, a larger proportion of funds for massive investment in infrastructure and other capital projects.’’