Emmanuel Thomas
April 30, 2015 – Not less than N1, 132, 269,772,148.33 kobo was spent on projects in the last eight years out of N2, 749.498 trillion budgeted for the same period, Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Ben Akabueze has said.
Akabueze who spoke at the annual ministerial press briefing in Lagos said that the money was spent on 8,961 projects certified by the ministry.
According to him, the average budget performance in the last eight years was 79 percent adding that the total revenue that accrued to the state during the period was N2, 433.349 trillion. He said that the revenue represents 89 percent of the total expenditure.
He said that in the last one year, his ministry issued pre-payment certificates in the sum of N39, 675, 634, 415.44 for 1, 246 projects.
“In order to ensure that the public get value for expended funds, the ministry monitors the execution of projects to ensure that they meet specification”, he said adding that projects valued N500,000 and above require certification by the Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the ministry.
Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said the state government enjoyed donor support to the tune of N15, 134, 459,766 in the last eight years while counterpart funding for the same period stands at N27, 245, 687.
He said the year 2014 budget of N489,690 billion was slightly ordered in August with capital expenditure reviewed downwards from N255.025bn to N247,825bn and recurrent expenditure increased to N241.865bn from N234,665bn without any change in budget size.
He said the budget was reordered to accommodate exigencies like Ebola outbreak, heightened security challenges and reversal of LASU fees increase.
He said that there are a lot of resources still remains untapped, but that he expects the incoming government to widen the revenue base and bring more taxable Lagosians on board.
