Skip to main content
Expectedly, the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Barrister Babatunde Fashola, has the highest budget in the 2016 budgets, with a total sum of recurrent and capital budgets of N467 billion. This underscores the government’s determination to execute capital projects in this fiscal year. Also, the security sector is given attention.
This is seen in the budgets for the Ministry of Defence (N428,098,182,742),
the Police Formation (N300,100,330,698),
Ministry of Interior (N198,352,766,543) and
the Office of the National Security Adviser (N90,350,068,052).
The allocations to the security sector show that this government, like the previous regime, has put national security on the front burner. It is expected that the Police formations across the country would be better trained to maintain security, and most importantly, improve on its intelligence network to ensure that the Boko Haram menace is brought under control.
With the substantial allocation to the Ministry of Interior, Nigerians would expect a measure of improvement in the services to be rendered by the Nigerian Prison Service, Nigeria Civic Defense Corps, Nigeria Fire Service, and Nigerian Immigration Service. The other ministry with a high budgetary allocation is Education where some N407.6 billion will be pumped into projects. Also, the health sector has been allocated some N258 billion, while the transportation sector will gulp the sum of N202 billion.
A good percentage of this amount will enter into the railway project, a major priority of the Buhari administration. There is also the sum of N200 billion allocated to Special Intervention projects.
Significantly, a huge part of this year’s budget (N1.36 trillion) is allocated to the servicing of foreign and domestic debts. Government’s decision to settle these debts may see to the completion of projects that have been abandoned due to non-payment of contract sums. Also significant in the budget is the N113 billion voted as Sinking fund towards the retirement of maturing loans.As it were, the budget is now law, but previous experiences have taught Nigerians to have measured expectations from government.
However, the Minister of National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma has promised 100 per cent implementation of this budget. This is how he puts it: “Our aim will always be one hundred percent implementation. We know that because we started late, we may not achieve it, but that is our aim. We will start off with that aim because the budget is a law. So, we will try and implement it as faithfully as we can.
However, the reality is that we may not (achieve full implementation) because we started late. So, to cure that, subsequent years, we’ll start earlier to give us a better chance of implementing the budget in full. But we will do our best.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The First Black Pilot Was A Nigerian

Ahmet Ali Çelikten Ahmet Ali Çelikten born İzmirli Alioğlu Ahmed; 1883–1969), also known as Arap Ahmet Ali or İzmirli Ahmet Ali,[1] was an Ottoman aviator who may have been the first black pilot in aviation history and was one of the few black pilots in World War I, like Eugene Jacques Bullard. His grandmother came fromBornu(now in Nigeria) to the Ottoman Empire as a slave. Ahmet born in 1883 in İzmir, in the Aidin Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire to his mother Zenciye Emine Hanım and father Ali Bey, of African Turkish descent. He aimed to become a naval sailor and entered the Naval Technical School named Haddehâne Mektebi (literally "School of the Blooming Mill"in 1904. In 1908, he graduated from school as a First Lieutenant (Mülâzım-ı evvel). And then he went to aviation courses in the Naval Flight School (Deniz Tayyare Mektebi) that was formed on 25 June 1914 at Yeşilköy. He was then a member of the Ottoman Air Force. During World War I, he married Hatice Hanım (1897–1991)...

The Economist article on the fight against Boko Haram

Read this very interesting article by The Economiston the fight against Boko Haram and the alleged multiple deaths of Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau. The article below.. How many times can one man die? At least four, in the case of Abubakar Shekau, the slippery leader of Boko Haram. Nigerian security forces celebrated his demise in 2009, 2013 and 2014, only for him to pop up again, disconcertingly animate, on camera. When Chad’s president said in August that his troops had killed Mr Shekau, the jihadist was resurrected once again, this time with a voice recording. “Woe unto liars that had claimed I am dead,” said the voice. “Nobody can kill me.” This relatively mild-mannered dispatch raised questions of its own. Most of what is known about Africa’s most notorious terrorist derives from his gun-wielding, slave-touting videos. If he were still at large, would he not release a film in his usual more robust style? Most probably, he is indeed alive. Whether he is injured is impossible...

2 young children killed after a part of a tree fell unto their tent while asleep

2 young people were killed early Friday after a limb from an oak tree fell on their tent as they slept at a popular campground inYosemite National Park.The names and ages of the minors were not released, and their deaths remain under investigation, according to park spokesman Scott Gediman. Tuolumne County sheriff’s officials said they will not release the young people’s identities. "Our thoughts are with the families as they grieve this tragedy," park Supt. Don Neubacher said in a statement. The youngsters were sleeping in their tent at the popular family Upper Pines Campground in Yosemite Valley. Then at about 5 a.m., a limb from a black oak collapsed on them, Gediman said. The park’s dispatchers received numerous 911 calls for medical assistance. When they arrived to the campground, the youngsters were dead. It is unclear why the tree limb fell, but officials said it wasn’t windy that morning, Gediman said. “Fallen branches like this one are a common occurrence across the...