N743bn Released For Capital Expenditure In 6 Months

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Madein, says the federal government has so far released N743 billion for capital expenditure from March to August 2023.

She stated this on Thursday in Abuja at a capacity building workshop organised by the Office in collaboration with the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and the Association of Public Procurement Practitioners of Nigeria (APPON).

She said, “Prior to the implementation of the Cash Management Guideline and the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in January, 2023 by the OAGF Cash Management Team and the GIFMIS Team in collaboration with the World Bank, the Capital Development Fund was committed to the tune of over N1.5tn and these commitments remained so for months indicating that the actual cash needs of MDAs were ignored in the releases of funds to the MDAs thereby slowing down the utilization of already allocated funds while government continuously pay interest on borrowed funds already committed.

“As at today, through the policy, the treasury has successfully processed and released a total sum of N743.737bn from March to August 2023 while a total sum of N487.421bn is currently being processed for September and October, 2023.”

Also speaking, the National President of APPON, Mr. Emem James Kanico, lamented that overtime officers from other cadres in the civil service engage in assignments that are supposed to be carried out by procurement officers which violates public procurement act.

He further called on the federal government to “Sanction any MDA that contravene the provisions of the procurement in respect with individuals qualified to carry out procurement processes.”