FG to spend 1.42tr on infrastructure this year – Zainab

The Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajiya Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed has said the federal government will spend N1.42 trillion on infrastructure this year.

Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja during a town hall meeting on the achievements of the federal government in infrastructure development, she said, “In 2022 alone, we plan to spend about N1.42 trillion on infrastructure and N2.11 trillion on human capital development.”

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She said Nigeria’s economy and population remained the largest in Africa with over $400 billion in GDP and over 200 million people.

She said that the Road Infrastructure Development Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme (RITCS) was launched in 2019 to leverage private sector capital and expertise to construct, repair and maintain critical road infrastructure in key economic corridors and industrial clusters in Nigeria.

On budget, the minister said the implementation of the 2021 federal government budget has passed 94 per cent with at least N12.56tr already expended. 

We have achieved “significant progress in ensuring implementation of the Appropriation Act, particularly the capital budget – as of November 2021, on the expenditure side, N12.56 trillion (or 94.1% has been spent out of the N13.57 trillion pro-rata budget. This performance is inclusive of expenditure estimates of the GOEs but exclusive of Project-Tied Loans,” she said.

The Minister for Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola said that under the present administration, various roads where people travelled for a whole day now had people travelling for one hour or less because of the various road projects going on in the country.

Minister of State for Power, Mr Goddy Jedy Agba said before the end of the year about six million meters would be installed.

Convener of the town hall meeting, Minister for Information and Culture, Alh. Lai Mohammed noted that the town hall meeting was the 21st edition since it started in Lagos in 2016.

“Other Town Hall Meetings scheduled for this year will focus on the Administration’s strides in the area of the National Social Investment Programme; fight against corruption; insecurity; national unity and the economy, among others,” he said.