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Budget: FG to make new project inclusion strenuous

By on August 2, 2013

The Federal Government has commenced moves to make the inclusion of new projects in annual budgets more strenuous.

The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, told State House correspondents this at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday.

He was joined at the briefing by the Minister of State for Works, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda.

Maku said the move by the government was based on a joint memorandum presented to the FEC by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and the Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Dr. Nwanze Okeidegbe.

He said the memo recommended that the government must carry out proper scientific analysis of such new projects before they would be included in budgets.

The analysis, he explained, would be aimed at ascertaining the benefits of the proposed new projects on Nigerians as well as their environmental impacts on the host communities, among others.

“The memo is seeking a template that will make us analyse new projects before inculcating them into the budget. The analysis will ascertain the projects’ environmental impacts and gains for Nigerians. There will be proper scientific analyses of new projects,” he said.

Maku said the council decided that members should carry out further study on the memo before a decision would be reached.

Yuguda said the council also approved the N3bn contract for the rehabilitation of the Calabar-Ugep-Ogoja-Katsina Ala road section1 (Calabar to Ugep) in Cross River State.

 

 

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