By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Federal Government allocated over N1,322.92 trillion on capital expenditure for 12 top Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the 2020 Budget.
This is even as the Government admitted that it was responsible for the failure of Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects in the country.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed who disclosed this while breaking down the 2020 budget in Abuja on Monday, said the government plans to spend a total of N10.33 trillion in the budget.
Allocations to the MDAs according to the Minister include, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing (N259.2 billion); Ministry of Power (N127.67 billion); Federal Ministry of Transportation (N123.07 billion); Federal Ministry of Education (N162.7 billion), Ministry of Ministry of Defence, (99.87 billion); Federal Ministry of Health (N90.98 billion); Federal Ministry of Agriculture (N79.79 billion); Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development (N45.45 billion).
Others are: Federal Ministry of Aviation (N53.85 billion); Federal Ministry of Water Resources (78.34 billion); x Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (N41,34 billion) and Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (N37.55 billion).
Ahmed explained that the PPP projects failed in Nigeria because the government failed to prepare them well enough, a situation that discouraged investors from buying into the projects.
“It is true that PPP has not succeeded in Nigeria. We have done quite a lot. Very few have succeeded and the reason is because we are not preparing the projects well enough. And we noticed that that is a gap.
” And we have authors even by development partners to support ministries departments and agencies that have this eligible PPP projects to support them in packaging this projects. That will enhance our ability to attract private sector investment into those projects. The weakest link we have is the preparation of the PPP projects” she said.
She added however that the government provided special economic zones under the Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment as well as the presidential development fund which is domiciled under the National Investment Authority (NSIA).
“On the PPP, what is in the budget that I can directly refer you to is the special economic zone under the Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment and also the provision that we have the Presidential Development Fund which currently lies on a PPP basis by the National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).
“But in the infrastructure ministries, there are several projects that are suitable for PPP. I know that on an annual basis they actually extract projects that are suitable for PPP and give it to Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC)” she said.
Similarly, the government projected that about N237 billion from looted funds would be used to fund the budget
“On the recovery of looted funds, if you look at the budget we have a provision of N237 billion provided for as a financing item in the budget. This is our projection of how much would be recovered as looted funds. This will be funds that will now be available to fund the budget” the minister explained.
