The President, Muhammadu Buhari had earlier in the week stated that he would like to go over the recently approved 2016 budget before signing off on it.This delay has led to government activities being unable to move forward as many of the agencies are finding it difficult to implement their programmes.
It was gathered that capital projects, whose contractors would have gone back to sites, remained abandoned as the first quarter of the year ended on Thursday.
According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, Buhari had, in Washington DC, ruled out early signing of the budget and this has in turn affected the productivity of the government many of the ministries are having challenges getting supplies from their contractors.
According to the Punch, the ministry of finance have seen their supplies of stationery limited owing to what officials described “as a wait and see attitude of the suppliers.”
The same situation is also being experienced in the ministry of trade and investment and that of budget and national planning.
A top government official in one of the ministries told the Punch correspondent that as a result of the budget delay, many capital projects could not be funded.
According to him, many contractors handling the projects had thought that they would go back to sites within the first quarter of this year following meetings they held with the government.
He, however, said that the projects, including the Kano- Maiduguri Road, which have budgetary allocations of N16bn; Abuja-Lokoja Road (N10bn), and Apapa-Oshodi Road (N5bn), remained abandoned.
Other affected projects are the Sokoto-Kontagora Road project where the sum of N4bn had been allocated in the budget; Ilorin-Jebba road project N6bn; Itu-Ikot-Ekpene road project N6bn.
Many of the projects were carried over from the 2015 financial year.
The official said currently, only critical recurrent expenditure items that had to do with travel expenses of ministers were being met.
The source said, “You will recall that this year’s budget has sparked a lot of controversies and as such nobody is certain of what will be the outcome in terms of the expenditure items that have been proposed by each MDA.
“For instance, in our ministry, majority of expenses have been put on hold owing to the fact that the budget is not ready.
“As we speak, stationery has not been supplied in the store because we don’t know how much would be approved for that purpose.
“Also, some of the workers who did overtime have not been paid their allowance, even the running of the power generating set is being threatened because suppliers have started demanding payments.
“So everything is practically on a standstill waiting for the budget.”
Construction firms said they had yet to receive a dime from the N350bn which Buhari’s administration promised that it would use to revive the economy, particularly in settling part of the over N600bn debt owed contractors across the country.
In March, the Federal Government announced that it would inject N350bn into the economy in order to revive the country’s economic activities, and stressed that the fund would be used to largely pay the debts owed contractors in Nigeria.
But when contacted on Friday, contractors under their umbrella body – Federation of Construction Industry, told one of our correspondents that they had yet to receive a dime from the administration, despite the fact that the government owed them over N600bn.
Speaking on behalf of contractors and construction firms, the President, FOCI, Mr. Solomon Ogunbusola, stated that he was not aware of any payment to any contractor or construction company with respect to the debt owed them.
Asked if contractors have been receiving payments from the N350bn fund, Ogunbusola said, “I am not aware. Maybe the government wants to borrow or it is planning something else. You know me very well that if I am aware I will tell you that I’m aware.
“We spoke and made it public that the debt to contractors was over N600bn and I told you clearly about it. After that, the government said we should go and bring our documentation and we did, but since that time we have not heard anything.”
When probed further on why contractors had yet to mobilise to construction sites across the country, he replied, “If the money has been paid, then you don’t need to call us before we will mobilise the equipment the next morning.
“You can call the ministry of finance and clarify if the ministry has given money to the construction industry. If it says yes, please ask the ministry the amount.”
Officials from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing corroborated the statements of the FOCI president, as they told one of our correspondents that the Federal Government had yet to disburse the funds to construction firms.
“The funds have not been given out and I think it is because the government is taking time in making sure that the right persons or companies are captured when such payments commence,” an official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said.
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