FG allays fears on 2014 budget, says N400bn Q1, Q2 capital fully cash-backed

The Federal Government has now fully cash-backed the N400 billion capital votes so far released for the first and second quarters (Q1 and Q2) spending, as it also assured on a faster implementation of the slowing capital spending.

The clarifications by the Finance Ministry came amid mounting concerns that the 2014 capital budget was not being implemented well enough to fund huge developmental needs across the country.

Paul Nwabuikwu, senior special assistant on media to the coordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, confirmed on Monday that the N200 billion first quarter release had been cash-backed long ago and that the process for the second quarter was just concluded on Monday.

“The N200 billion first quarter has been totally cash-backed. For the second quarter, N77 billion was initially cash-backed and the balance of N123 billion was cash-backed between Friday and Monday latest,” Nwabuikwu told BusinessDay.

He noted that because of its focus on infrastructure, government has so far ensured that the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) that implement infrastructure projects get reasonable capital releases.

For instance, the Works Ministry got N29.5 billion for the first quarter capital. Agriculture Ministry received about N7 billion, Ministry of Water Resources got N8 billion while the Power Ministry received about N14 billion first quarter capital vote. Nwabuikwu added that each of them is due to even get more when the N200 billion second quarter capital is fully cash-backed.
Nwabuikwu further noted that claims that institutions like the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) were yet to receive any capital allocations for the year were not true.

He said the NIMC, for instance, received about N248.6 million first quarter capital and is due to get another N2 billion from the second quarter vote. This is out of the N7 billion total that was budgeted for the institution for 2014 spending.