N820bn released for capital project implementation, says Udoma

The Federal Government has so far released the sum of N820.5bn for the implementation of capital projects contained in the 2018 budget.

The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma gave the figure on Thursday in Abuja while making a presentation on the 2019 Budget.

He said the total amount released for the capital project as of December 14 stood at N820.5bn, noting that more releases would be made before the end of the year.

He added that government is committed to improving the well being of Nigerians through targeted spending on priority infrastructure projects in road, power, and rails among others.

The 2018 budget which was signed by President Muhammadu Buhari had a total spending of N9.1tn made up of N2.87tn for capital expenditure, N3.51tn for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure while N2.01tn is projected to be spent on debt servicing.

The N9.1tn budget was expected to be financed from N2.99tn to be generated from oil revenue, N31.25bn from Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas dividend while N1.17bn is expected to be realised through revenue from minerals and mining.

To fund the budget, the Federal Government had planned to generate N658.55bn from Companies Income Tax, N207.51bn from Value Added Tax, N324.86bn from Customs while N57.87bn is expected to come from federation account levies.

In the same vein, the government was expected to raise N847.95bn through independent revenue from its agencies,  while tax amnesty income, signature bonus and unspent balance from previous years was to provide N87.84bn, N114.3bn and N250bn respectively.

Details later…