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Approves N259bn FCT budget
By: Omololu Ogunmade
The Senate Wednesday declined to approve the N4 billion proposal for the construction of
the African Peace Mission Building in the 2013 Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
budget as it passed the N259 billion FCT Statutory Appropriation Bill into law.
While presenting the report on the budget for approval, Senate Committee Chairman on
FCT, Senator Smart Adeyemi, said appropriating for the building project would be unnecessary in view
of ongoing litigation on the proposed site for the project, which he said would
make access to the money impossible.
“We cannot appropriate for a land that is not available,”
the report said.
However, Adeyemi said of the N259.6 billion proposed for FCT
operations this year, N160 billion was approved for capital expenditure; N48.6 billion for personnel costs; N50.5
billion appropriated for overhead costs with a surplus of N48.7 million.
Adeyemi also told the Senate that whereas N306.4 billion was
appropriated for FCT in the 2012 fiscal year, there was a fiscal surplus of
N90.5 million, adding that the total revenue realised from January to December
by the Federal Capital Territory Authority (FCTA) was N180 billion.
He also disclosed that the total revenue utilised during the
last fiscal year was N133 billion out of which N40.8 billion was spent as
personnel costs, while N29.1 billion and N63.0 billion were spent as overhead
costs and capital expenditure respectively.
According to him, the
FCT Committee found that the overall performance of the statutory allocation in
the year under consideration was only 43 per cent with most of the projects
initiated still ongoing because of what he described as the ineptitude of
getting the due process certificate.
He also reported that both the new and ongoing projects in
FCT were not sufficiently funded because “of delay in the release of funds
occasioned by bureaucratic bottlenecks.”
After his submission,
the budget was passed through a voice vote.
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