The Senate Committee on Finance on Monday queried the Federal Ministry of Finance for high budgetary releases to itself and some of its parastatal agencies.
According to its budget performance report for 2018, the ministry has so far recorded 76 per cent overall performance in terms of fund released in the outgoing fiscal year. This did not go down well with the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, John Enoh, and other members of the committee. For instance, the senators noted that whereas N667 million was released to the ministry for capital projects, only N209 million or 31 per cent had been utilised.
“We prioritised their releases so they had more than eight months, because of payment of corps members’ allowances in case of the NYSC, and feeding of prisoners for the prison service,” she said.