Fashola raises alarm over ministry’s 2017 budget slash, health centres, boreholes inclusion

Lagos—Mr Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, has raised alarm over the insertion of projects outside the purview of his ministry in the 2017 Appropriation Act by the National Assembly.

Fashola said it was unfair to the Executive arm for the inclusion of such projects after public hearings on the budget and defence of the fiscal estimates by the ministries.

Fashola
“What I have in my budget now is primary healthcare centres, boreholes,” he said at an interactive session with editors yesterday.

“That was the meeting we had with the Acting President and that was the reason why the budget was not signed on time.

“We were ask to complete those abandoned projects; the budget of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was reduced by the National Assembly from N31 billion to N10 billion.

“We are owing the contractors about N15 billion and they have written to say  they are going to shut down.

“Also, the budget of the 2nd Niger bridge was reduced from N15 billion to N10 billion and about N3 billion was removed from the Okene-Lokoja-Abuja road budget.”

Fashola added: “Everybody is complaining about power supply but they also cut the budget for Manbila power project and the Bodo bridge that connects the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Station was also cut and all these were also discussed.

“If after we have defended the budget,  the legislature unilaterally changed the budget, what is the purpose of deliberation?”

According to Fashola, it is unfair to Nigerians after public hearings were conducted with tax payers’ money and consultations with the lawmakers only for the budget to be altered, cut or padded.

The minister said that apart from the 200 uncompleted roads he inherited from the previous administration, the lawmakers added100 roads.

“These roads are not federal roads and some of them do not have designs, how do we award roads that were not designed irrespective of the power you have?

“It is unconstitutional for the National Assembly (NASS) to legislate on state roads.

“A budget is an estimation plan that set in motion what is to be spent, how much will be borrowed and how much will be collected.

“The executive controls all the machinery for collecting taxes and other revenue with relevant data from the Ministries of Finance, Physical Planning and the Budget Office and others.

“I am not saying that the legislature cannot contribute to the budget, but I hold the view that it cannot increase the budget because they do not collect the revenue with which to run or implement the budget,” the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quotes the minister as saying.

Fashola, who held sway as Lagos