Reps query Okonjo-Iweala, Otunla, Okogwu over poor implementation of Budget 2012

THE House of Representatives, yesterday, queried the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Jonah Otunla and Director-General of the Budget Office, Dr Bright Okogwu, over the snail-like pace of implementation of the 2012 budget.
The Reps also accused the Federal Government of discrimination and the selective nature of releases to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, which had largely affected implementation.
Also yesterday, the Minister of Finance suggested that there was need for Nigeria to have at least $10 billion on its Excess Crude Account as most countries in Africa now have crude.
Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Mr John Enoh, in his address at the meeting with relevant stakeholders, expressed concern on the low level of implementation of the budget, adding that most of the MDAs complained that funds were not released at at appropriate time.
Enoh said: “If money is not released and some of these ministries are complaining to our committees that are going on oversight, we need to see how we could strengthen the implementation. We like to have an updated documents to show that over N400 billion had been released.”
The chairman said the Ministry of Niger Delta got 50 per cent of its allocation but the question is: what can be responsible for that? One is worried because reports get to us from our standing committee that there were so many on-going projects that these ministries and parastatals can utilise their funds on.
He said: “I can tell you that Ministry of Water Resources got an allocation of N70 billion but got just about N10 billion, likewise the Ministry of Land and Housing, of N42 billion allocated to it, got N6 billion.”
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