The House of Representatives has lamented the decline in allocation of funds to the Federal Capital Authority (FCT) which it said is affecting projects and operations of its administration.
The House Committee on FCT at the budget defence hearing observed that, one of the major constraint facing the FCT was the non-release of funds appropriated in the 2019 Budget.
In his address, Chairman of the committee, Abdullahi Idris Garba (APC,Niger) said they would address the financial challenges being faced by the administration.
He said: “the committee has observed a downward trend in the allocation of funds to the FCT by the federal government. This is worrisome because FCT needs adequate funding of critical national projects. The reason for this is not far fetched.”
He disclosed that, the sum of N32 billion was appropriated for the FCT but only N9.6 billion was released.
In his presentation, the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello said non-release of funds prevented the execution of projects which translates to zero performance level of the 2019 budget.
He said:”For the 2020 fiscal year, a total sum of N28,422,804,431 was given to the Federal Capital Territory as its National Capital Budget Envelop. In view of the poor performance of the Federal Capital Territory potion of the 2019 National Priority Budget, the FCTA has therefore, decided to re-prioritize and rollovers only essential projects without making new provision of any new project.
“In the same vein, the number of ongoing projects were reduced from 30 in 2019 to 13 in the proposed 2020 National Budget”
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