Capital component of 2020 budget only 30% implemented - Ahmed

… poor implementation defeats budget extension - Gbajabiamila

Capital component of the 2020 budget only attained 30 percent implementation as at December 31, 2020. Businessday recalled that to ensure full implementation of the 2020 budget, the National Assembly extended the capital component of the budget to March 31, 2021.

Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, disclosed this on Monday while responding to questions on the status of the performance of the capital component of the 2020 budget when she appeared before the principal officers of the National Assembly at a joint session.

Ahmed explained that the 2020 budget was passed earlier to make for a January - December cycle implementation, but lamented that the impact of COVID-19 had interrupted the process, thereby causing low performance.

The minister disclosed that there would be another assessment on the budget at the end of February to report the performance.

“We had N1.4 trillion that has been released as capital expenditure and this represents 89 percent.

“So, just to note that the extension meant for agencies to continue to utilise the funds that has already been released to them and we have made an assessment.

“I am afraid to report that the performance utilization of the extended amount was averaging about 30 percent. We are going to make another assessment on the close of February and report the performance,” Ahmed pointed out.

She said the relevant intervention agencies of government would continue to work to close the N100 gap between the exchange window and the parallel market.

Speaker of the House of

Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, expressed dissatisfaction on the poor budget implementation despite the extended grace period to March 31, 2021.

Gbajabiamila said for optimal growth and development, the National Assembly had accepted to extend the capital component of the 2020 budget to enable full implementation.

The speaker said he had been reliably informed by members of the House on oversight function pointing to low performance of the capital component of the 2020 budget few weeks to the end of the three months extension.