By Adesuwa Tsan, Abuja
The National Assembly has expressed disappointment over the poor performance of the 2024 budget and directed Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, to urgently release more funds to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for capital projects execution.
According to the lawmakers, the budget of the outgone year only performed well in the recurrent expenditure which affects only a negligible part of the population.
They made this known at a joint sitting of chairmen of Senate and House Committees on Appropriations led by Senator Solomon Adeola and Abubakar Birchi respectively and the Presidential Economic Team led by Edun on consideration of the 2025 Appropriation Bill at the National Assembly complex, yesterday.
The committees expressed concern over the huge discrepancies in the size of the Recurrent Expenditure relative to Capital Expenditure and the low level of fund releases for capital projects for MDAs in the 2024 Budget that is ongoing.
They noted that with the budget defence for the 2025 Appropriations kicking off, MDAs should not still be grappling with non-performance of their core mandates as contained in the capital budget.
Earlier, the Finance minister had presented a report which indicated that the 2024 budget performance so far was at 43 percent with recurrent expenditure at 100 percent and capital budget, 25 percent.
Reacting to the report, Senator Adeola stressed the need for a drastic reduction in the ratio of recurrent to capital ratio in the budget from the present 80 percent for recurrent and 20 percent for capital, to at least 60 percent to 40 percent. By doing this, he explained, the budget will spur economic growth and impact directly on the people.
“Capital releases to MDAs are the major drivers of economic activities within the nation. Non release of funds for capital projects is a major issue in the performance of 2024 Budget so far and it is desirable that funds are released to prevent abandoned projects and ensure the success of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president.”
Birchi echoed the position of Adeola and called for more releases for capital projects of MDAs for projects such as schools, roads, dams, hospitals and other social infrastructure instead of such items as debt repayment, which he argued, can be restructured in the interim.
“Most of the items of recurrent expenditure which takes a huge part of our budget and is implemented 100 percent will only directly affect about 10 percent of our population while capital projects of the MDAs will directly affect majority of over 200 million Nigerians in areas of social infrastructures provisions like hospitals, schools, roads, energy and similar,” he stated.
The finance minister assured that there were warrants awaiting payments for capital projects. He argued that the government cannot go back on the old ways of spending money that it does not have to avoid backlash as happened in France and Germany recently.
On his part, the Minister of Budget and Planning, Alhaji Abubakar Bagudu, explained that some of the huge recurrent expenditure goes into the campaign of the military against insecurity, which he said, is yielding results to spur agricultural production and economic activities.
He added that it also reflects the development level of the country and some of the societal challenges we are facing as a nation.
The Director General of Budget Office, Dr. Tanimu Yakubu, attributed the huge recurrent expenditure to past legacies inherited by President Bola Tinubu in areas like unpaid pensions and gratuities which the administration has successfully addressed stressing that in the future there may be need for legislation by the National Assembly to limit the size of recurrent expenditure in the budget.
Other ministers in attendance included the Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite and the permanent secretaries of Ministries of Finance and Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
The Appropriations Committee Open Day on the 2025 budget has been postponed from today to next week Wednesday, January 15.
The Open Day will give stakeholders the opportunity to make input in the 2025 budget before the report is laid on the floor of the Senate and the House of Representatives respectively for consideration and passage.