Gbajabiamila laments poor performance of extended capital budget

SPEAKER of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has raised concerns over performance of the capital component of 2020 budget that was extended to March 2021.

He made the observation at a meeting convened by leadership of the National Assembly, yesterday, to ascertain the level of implementation during extension of the capital component of the 2020 budget.

“It is not an unusual thing to extend the life of a budget. So if we do that, which is not illegal, we expect that there will be result. It would be recalled that the Senate had extended implementation of capital aspects of the 2020 Appropriation Act to March 31, 2021, after it went through first and second readings.”

Gbajabiamila recalled that the extension followed request by President Muhammadu Buhari, through Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs.

Zainab Ahmed, in a letter to National Assembly asking for it to enable the executive implement the capital aspect of the budget.

“Do we just ask for sequence of extension? If we are extending the implementation of the capital project, we are basically trying to make sure social development and growth of the country is achieved optimally. It will not be extension for the sake of extension, there should be reasonable and visible identifiable result.

“Now we are about four weeks to the end of that extension and we do not seem to know where we are, where we stand, and that which we need to do.

“The leadership of National Assembly is basically carrying out an oversight on the extension that we granted for three months. You are all aware that for good reason, we have this extension. There was COVID- 19 last year, which affected the budget implementation and we have to extend the budget,” the Speaker said.