From the N6.06 trillion 2016 budget, the Federal Government has so far released a total of N2.5trillion for several projects, Minister of Budget and National Planing, Udoma Udo Udoma has said.
Udoma, who answered questions from the Senate Committee on Appropriation on Thursday, October 27, was accompanied by Minister of Finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.
Mrs Adeosun said N753 billion was for capital projects; N117 billion went into statutory transfer. She added that N135 billion was for service wide; N108 billion was for over head; consolidated pensions got N142 billion and personnel, N1.2 trillion.
In her brief to the committee, Mrs. Adeosun said her ministry had discovered that some revenue generating agencies inflated their expenses just to fritter the funds away.
She the agencies’ books revealed overbloated travel expenses, medical allowances and others that could not be justified.
She told the committee that many of the cases had been referred to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
She could however not give an update on the amount of loot recovered so far. Recoveries are being made daily, she said.
The minister explained the difficulties associated with recovery of looted funds stashed in foreign countries, particularly the United States, Switzerland and others.
“The process of recovering looted funds is an ongoing process. Money comes on daily basis. We have not recovered much from foreign countries. It is a little more difficult.”
She told the lawmakers that the government was waiting to finalise loan arrangements from the EXIM Bank in China for the rail project.
The minister revealed that over 700, 000 new companies had been brought into the tax net, stressing that the development would increase the country’s revenue considerably.
Mrs. Adeosun said: “Right now, we are not seeing the numbers but we believe that revenue collection is a function of data. And as far as they are getting more and more companies into the net, as the economy improves, our tax revenues will improve and we will be less dependent on oil, which is one of our stated objectives.
Chairman of Appropriation Committee, Senator Danjuma Goje, who expressed satisfisfaction with the implementation of the 2016 budget so far, however, expressed concern on the possibility of the country securing these loans.
