The
austerity measures adopted by the Federal Government has been directed
to various ministries in the form of massive reduction of their budgets
in contrast to what was contained in the 2015 budget proposal that was
presented to the National Assembly earlier this year.
Our correspondent gathered that aside the
Federal Ministry of Works, whose minister, Mike Onolememen, decried the
over 80 per cent slash of his ministry’s budget by the Federal Ministry
of Finance, other ministries were also affected.
Specifically, senior officials in the
ministries of power, agriculture and aviation stated that their various
budgets were slashed just as that of the works ministry.
Although the percentages by which their
respective budgets were reduced differ, it was learnt that what was left
for the ministries after the cut would not meet the financial demands
of projects earmarked for 2015.
On Monday, Onolememen told members of the
House of Representatives Committee on Works that the ministry’s N100bn
proposed budget for 2015 was slashed by the Ministry of Finance to
N11bn, representing an 89 per cent reduction.
Onolememen stated that no sum was
approved for the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency’s capital projects and
the Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation.
He said the finance ministry predicated its action on the economic realities on the ground.
The minister expressed concern that only
33 out of the 210 ongoing road projects had been provided for in view of
the “lean allocation” to the ministry, adding that the provision was
not sufficient to encourage contractors to sustain appreciable progress
on their work sites.
At the Federal Ministry of Agriculture
and Rural Development, it was learnt that what was approved for it by
the finance ministry was less than one per cent of what was contained in
the earlier 2015 budget proposal.
This, our correspondent gathered, was way
below the demands of the ministry and would go nowhere in settling the
financial needs of its projects.
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