By Kachi Ekile
The federal government has released N1.2 trillion to 17 ministries meant for the implementation of capital projects in the third quarter of 2023.
Per a Channels report, the Budget Implementation Report for Q3, 2023 which was released by the Budget Office on Sunday showed that 75.4 per cent lower than the N5 trillion allocated for capital expenditure in the 2023 budget, resulting in a deficit of ₦3.8 trillion.
It was revealed that the sum is to advance development and infrastructure initiatives as of September 30, 2023.
Capital projects involve the construction, acquisition, or renovation of tangible assets such as buildings, roads, bridges, dams, schools, hospitals, and other facilities.
According to the report, the ministries utilised only N962.87 billion out of the cash backing of N1.23 trillion.
“The release of funds to MDAs for capital expenditure as of the third quarter of 2023 was done in tranches based on availability of resources and government priorities. Data from the OAGF on 2023 capital performance for MDAs as of 30th September 2023 showed that a total of N1.23tn was released to MDAs and cash-backed for 2023 capital projects and programmes.
“The sum of N351bn was released as the first Tranche, N331.92bn was the second Tranche and ₦208bn was the third Tranche. A total of N75.35bn was released as AlEs MDAs Budget and N261bn as AlEs Service Wide,” the report partly reads.
“42 of the MDAs representing (80.77 per cent) had utilised more than the overall average utilisation rate of 52.44 per cent of the amount cash-backed. 35 out of them had above 65.0 per cent utilisation rate while only four (7.72 per cent) had one hundred per cent utilisation level.
“The utilization report also revealed that 10 (18.18 per cent) of the MDAs had below 40 per cent utilisation rate of their cash-backed funds. Five (9.10 per cent) of the MDAS had utilisation rates of below 20 per cent while three (5.45 per cent) were yet to utilise anything from the funds released to them,” it added.
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