Including a total of N1.7 trillion in the budgets of various federal ministries, divisions, and agencies (MDAs) in the 2023 budget was confirmed by Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance and national planning, on Tuesday.
The number of loan-tied projects her government chose to include in 14 implementing agencies, according to Mrs. Ahmed, who spoke while testifying before the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations.
Allegations that the MDAs’ budgets were inflated were rejected by her.
In response to media allegations that certain MDAs had claimed that projects had been added to their budgets without their permission by the ministry of finance, the committee asked for the hearing.
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The Ministry of Defense, the National Universities Commission (NUC), and the Ministries of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development accused the Finance Ministry of placing the projects into their budgets.
It claimed that these accusations were presented at Senate budget hearings.
In response to the charge of padding, Mrs. Ahmed stated that the federal government currently houses project-related debts with the aforementioned MDAs.
Previously, only the allocations for counterpart funds and debt service were included in the FGN budget, which only partially accounted for these loans.
We opted to completely capture these project-tied loans in the FGN budget, she added, “to improve transparency and the comprehensiveness of the FGN budget, consistent with worldwide best practice.”
She emphasized that “all these projects, which are now the topic of dispute, were included in the budgets of these MDAs, which were forwarded to the supervising ministries on 4 October 2022 for their evaluation and feedback before the presentation to both the FEC and NASS.”
Budget for humanitarian affairs
Ms. Ahmed stated that the N206.2 billion that was inserted into the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs’ budget is for the National Safety Nets Project, which is funded with $435.57 million from the World Bank.
The project’s funding comes from the World Bank, with a planned withdrawal of $473,500,000, or N206,242,395,000 at the N435.57/USD exchange rate used for the 2023 budget, according to the spokeswoman.
However, she said that the labeling of the projects in the budget plan had caused misunderstanding.
The GIFMIS Budget Preparation System (BPS), which has a small dropdown range of project descriptions/codes, mistakenly recorded the expense as the purchase of security equipment. “Unfortunately, a wrong code was accidently utilized in the process of inputting it,” Ms. Ahmed added.
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Department of Defense
The Safe School Initiative, which has been housed under the Ministry of Defense, was also explained by the minister. She claims that the Ministry of Defence was chosen since the effort to provide security for schools is a multi-agency project.
“Under this program, the Defense Headquarters submitted its uncosted requirements. However, only N2.250 billion [50%] of the N4.5 billion requested for the MoD by the SSI Secretariat, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning (FMFBNP), was included in the 2023 budget.
“The Safe School Initiative [SSI] is a multi-agency coordinated effort to improve security in educational facilities operated by the FGN. The ministries concerned include the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, the Department for State Security, and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, she said.
Additionally, Mrs. Ahmed noted that President Muhammadu Buhari had sanctioned N8.6 billion for the first phase of the refurbishing and acquisition of Harris RF-5/7800 military communication equipment.
Department of Power
Ms. Ahmed also provided clarification regarding the N195.4 billion that was included in the Federal Ministry of Power’s budget. The government claims that the money will be used to finance four projects.
She claimed that N23 billion will go toward the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP), which will be carried out by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), and N24.3 billion will go toward the Nigeria Electricity Transmission Project, which will be carried out by Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). She also claimed that N76.55 billion will go toward the Zungeru Hydro Electric Power Project, which is funded by the Export-Import Bank of China, N70 billion will go toward the Power Sector Recovery Operation (
As a result, the committee decided that Sadiya Farouq, the minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management, and social development, should attend the meeting.
Muktar Betara (APC, Borno), the committee’s chairman, did not specify a specific date for Ms. Farouq’s appearance before the committee.
