FG Achieves 50% Capital Budget Implementation – Minister …Releases N25bn for Social Intervention Programme

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, yesterday placed the implementation of capital expenditure in the Federal Government’s 2016 Budget at 50 per cent.

She briefed State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The minister also announced that the had released N25 billion, translating to five per cent of the N500 billion earmarked for the programme in the 2016 budget.

She also revealed that an additional N40 billion was in the process of being released.

She said: “We have approval from the steering committee in the sum of N150 billion.

“So far, N25 billion has been released into the account and there is another N40 billion that is in the process of being released.”

The minister explained that government would roll out the first four programmes and they would continue into 2017.

The programmes, she said, are in four parts.

She said: “First is the homegrown school feeding Programme which is targeting 5.5 million primary school people in all the states of the federation from primary 1-3.

As at today, 11 states are fully ready to start and first phase will feed 3.5 million school children.

“The second programme is a job creation programme which is aimed at preparing 500,000 university graduates, they will be equipped with devices contained information to train them as teachers, agricultural workers and also as health support workers. They will be deployed to work in their local community. They will be receiving a monthly stipend of N30,000 monthly for a period of two years.

“The third is the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), where one million care givers will be given N5000 monthly for a period of two years. Focus has been given to the extremely poor and vulnerable in our society and special emphasis is being place to providing as many as possible the northern eastern part of the country where a lot of internally displaced persons.

“The fourth is the Enterprise promotion Programme which is essentially the loan scheme which will be handled by the Bank of Industry. 1.6 million people made up of market women, traders, artisans, small businesses, youths will be given loan from N10,000 to N100,000 with a repayment period of three to six months and administration cost of five per cent.

“N500 billion was budgeted for the social investment Programme in the 2016 budget. We are rolling out with this first four programmes and it will continue till 2017.” She added

According to her, there is approval from the steering committee in sum of N150 billion, but so far only N25 billion has been released into the account while another N40 billion is in the process of being released into the account.

She also pointed out that implementation will be done in stages as the states ready for each of the Programme will be added into each of the schemes.

The school feeding Programme, she said, has started in some states like Kaduna and Osun while the federal government is only adding its resources to it.

“The federal government will handle from primary 1-3 while the states will handle from 4-6.

“The cooks have been selected, banks are in place. The only thing that needs to be done including training the persons as well as taking data of the school children have been done in those nine states.

“There is no spending yet on the national social investment Programme, we are just kicking off, the funds will be released to the Bank of Industry this week for the EIP Programme and for the school feeding Programme is only after the cooks have performed that they will get their first payment.”

The 2017 budget preparation, she said, is at an advanced stage.

“The budget implementation itself is on course, the 2016 budget is fully performed to date in terms of personnel, that is to say we are not owing.” She stated

Fashola said that the Council approved two memos including 215 megawatt Kaduna power plant and construction of sub-station to evacuate 40 megawatt of power from the Gurara hydro electric power plant phase one.