By: Jamila Musa
As it is the norm all over the world especially in the developed world, countries and indeed states makes budgetary forecast and allocations to the various sectors of its national life and the FCTA is not an exception.
The Federal Capital Territtory administration (FCTA) under the able leadership of the Minister Mallam Mohammed Musa Bello has projected the sum of N45.5 billion naira as its projected National priority capital budget of 2021.This was disclosed by the Minister of the Territtory while making the projected budgetary projection to the senate committee of the FCT.
This figure presented by the Minister is in sync with the figure presented by the president Mohammad Buhari while presenting the National appropriation bill to the national assembly on october 8,2021.
The main thrust and aim of this allocations is to sustain the implementation of the Minister’s critical projects both in the FCT, and its satelites town. The minister announced the 28 priority projects selected to be funded by the budgetary capital allocations of the ministry. Kudos must be given to the Minister for re-iterating the intention of the budget allocation to the completions of on-going projects. In their selection, priority attenttion was accorded to the completion of current projects, accordingly, the entire projects in the 2021 budgets are for such projects.
Some of the projects to be funded from this budgetary proposals include, the construction of the southern parkway from the Christian centre to the Ring Road. Rehabilitation and expansion of the outer northern expressway project lot which includes Kubwa road from the federal civil service college to the Villa Round about. Rehabilitation of and Expansion of the Airport Expressway projects lot and the completion of the international vocation institute,Utako and four comprehensives science and technology colleges in Abaji, Gwagwalada, Kuje and Karshi. Others,includes provision of Engineering infrastructures to Area councils, Rehabilitation of the National Assembly Complex, design and construction of the Nigerian Cultural Centre and Millinium Tower, and development of the Idu Industrial Area Engineering Infrastructures.This we can say is the greatest height of budget prioritization seen in recent time in the FCT.
The Minister, Mallam Mohammed Musa Bello also disclosed that in the case of the Millineum Tower projects,the administration is working on a number of hybrid financing options to complete the project which will include an approsiate dose of the public/private partnerships,PPP.This is to ensure the commencement of commercial activities at the national monument.
It is hoped that this budget provisions for the 2021 fiscal year will be delivered 100percent considering the fact that the 2020 budget was hampered by the outbreak of the Covic-190 pandemic.The pandemic neccessitated the downward review of the initial allocation of N62,407,154,360 to N29,657,154,360,00.of this sum,the minister said,N150,000,000 or 50percent has so far been released.It is also alarming that the allocation to the fct.has declined over the years and the administration should do something about it.The Minister who is a strong advocate of budget prioritisation in this era where resources are scarce and sources of governmental revenue generation shrinking has been doing all he can through managerial ingenuity to make sure that the infrastructures in Abuja is available to all.
The prioritisation of the projects outlined to be funded in this years projects shows the fact that the Minister indeed knows the projects that are needed urgently over others to make life more easy for the common man on the streets of Abuja. We pray that this years budget will be funded hugely as revenue accrueing to government stabilises and increase and malaise such as the Covic-19 epidemic will not hamper its implementation.
This minister has shown consistently that the people must come first when prioritiying the budgets.He has shown this over and over again as exemplified by his shelving of most priority projects of his administration inorder to free funds to provide for the people,s health and welfare needs during the recent Covic-19 epidemic.
The administrations priority-driven projects and budgeting process identifies the projects whose value is important to the people at the immediate.Those projects today are projects that our people value more now and that is why we say thank you, our dear Minister.
The Minister has consistently avaluated his projects and programmes based on its capacity in achieving desired results and his desired results is the betterment of the people.
His projects in this year’s budget are scored based on its capacity to create community or governance results.
A community survey launched by the administration was incorporated in the scoring process so that projects that influenced the most highly valued community results are added to the budget for implementations.
Our city would be a modern me if the Minister continues to survey projects based on its abillity to achieve results and this results is the good of the majority of the people.
The Minister has been professional in the usage of the resource alligment diagnostic tools in which all projects are evaluated based on its abilility to achieve greater community good.These 28 projects earmarked for implementation passed this text. In future we shall improve the process by the the application of the outcome based budgeting process to decide on projects for implementation and the Minister assured he will.
