From AISHA RABO, Abuja
The Federal Government said on yesterday that road construction and repairs under the Ministry of Works and Housing were a major beneficiary of N650bn so far released for capital projects in the 2019 budget.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, had said the nation’s roads were not as bad as they people portrayed.The minister also said poor funding was the reason road projects were not executed at a faster pace by the government.
Yesterday, Zainab Ahmed was asked to respond to the excuse given by Fashola. She said, “It is true that we are not able to fund the budget 100 per cent, but whenever we release funds for capital projects, the Ministry of Power, the Ministry of Works and Housing are always the priority and the Ministry of Transportation.”
The finance minister declared that about N650bn had been released by the government for capital projects this year.
“In October, when the President was submitting the budget to the National Assembly, he indicated that he had given a directive that we should release N600bn for capital expenditure. We already have more than that. The target for us is to be able to release up to N900bn by December. But right now, we are at about N650bn capital release.”
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