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Fred Itua, Abuja
The Federal Government, yesterday, declared that no single dime of the projected N2.465 trillion capital expenditure component of the N10.33 trillion 2020 budget has been released to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
This is even as lawmakers have demanded for the identity of a lawyer who collected $4 million as payment for professional fee for the management of excess crude account.
The Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris who made the declaration during an interactive session with the Senate Committee on Finance, dropped the bombshell of $4 million paid to a lawyer from the Excess Crude Account as professional fee last month.
Ahmed in his submission on releases made so far for the implementation of the N10.33 trillion 2020 budget, said nothing had been released.
He, however, said N493 billion has been released for personnel cost, while N59.77 billion has been released for consolidated pension, N46.6 billion for overhead cost, while only N20.76 billion for capital supplementation.
But when the Committee probed further, he said that N340 billion would be released in this first quarter which will be first tranche for the capital expenditure component of the budget.
He had in his explanation to the Committee on how the account depleted from $325 million last month to $71.8 million this month, mentioned that $4 million was paid to a lawyer for professional fee.
According to him, the balance in the excess crude account as at January 2020 was $325 million, the National Economic Council (NEC) agreed to invest $250 million into Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and $4 million was paid as professional fee to an unknown lawyer.
