Nigerian Government Friday said it has disbursed a whopping N130.7 billion to the defence sector in four months, covering January to April, 2014.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, disclosed this to newsmen in Abuja, while breaking down the 2014 budget that was signed by President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday.
Nigeria is fighting Boko Haram insurgency that has wrecked havoc in the northern part of the country as well as the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Justifying the huge budget for defence, Okonjo-Iweala, said “Defence spending is top in everything.
“You know that military establishment need new things to assist them in their work and ours will not be different.
“No budget will be enough to meet their demands, but for now I think the sector takes almost a trillion of the budgets.
“To be specific, they have about N968.127 billion and we have disbursed N130.7 billion between January and April 2014.”
According to her, N85.9 billion out of the amount disbursed was for personnel cost, saying that the military paid its personnel because it was yet to be integrated into the IPPIS.
Okonjo-Iweala said that N3.8 billion approved by the President was being processed and would soon be released, adding that there were other additional spending.
She said the delay in the passage of the budget would not hamper the running of the economy.
The minister said that the law gave the executive the power to spend up to 50 per cent of the budget pending its approval.
She added: “That is exactly what we have done and you know we have disbursed N200 billion for the first quarter of the 2014 based on what the law allows us to do.
“So the effect of the delay may be relatively minimal.”
Okonjo-Iweala said the 2014 budget had focused on many policies that would be beneficial to the economy and would drive economic growth and development.
The policies, she said, included housing under the Nigeria Mortgage Refinancing Company, the sugar roadmap and the automobile.
She added that these policies would help drive positive growth in the economy, adding that the housing mortgage would take off by first week of June.
She said: “From June, we will advertise for the people that will benefit in the initial 10,000 housing scheme.
“This will give the young ones hope to live.
“Again, it also very important to hear that the concept of the Nigeria mortgage refinancing had received award and recognition at the just-concluded African Development Bank meeting.
“This is to show that we are going the right way.”
Okonjo-Iweala explained that the agriculture, aviation and solid mineral sectors would get support in form of duty to buy equipment.
The duty, she said, would be basically incentives at zero per cent.
Commenting on additional N53 billion to the budget, she said that the Federal Government would look for additional funding to handle it.
“If not, it will be added to the N571 billion proposed to be borrowed by the government in the budget,” she said.
After handing over the signed 2014 budget to the Minister of Finance for implementation on Friday, President Jonathan left Abuja for Pretoria to confer with African leaders on joint action against terrorism.
