I Cannot Meet Your Demand On Budget Implementation, Jonathan Answers Angry House

A nervous federal government today sent its Information Minister to the sidelines and moved up its biggest player to plead with the House of Representatives that the President cannot meet their demand to implement the budget in full and on time. 

It was the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who faced State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa. 
The occasion seemed to be beyond the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who held his peace beside his senior colleague while Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala explained that the Presidency has implemented 56% of the budget, and released the sum of 324billion out of N4.69trillion.

“I think the point is that Mr. President is determined to implement this budget as fully as possible and therefore we will be moving towards the figure of as full implementation as we can by the end of the year because the budget was made for the whole year,” she explained. 

According to her, “In terms of 100% implementation, I think that what I read that was said by sections of the National Assembly, will have to do 100% implementation of the budget by September.

First, in my experience worldwide, there is hardly any country where you would implement 100% even by the end of the year and this is based on very broad experience.”

She said that the usual expectation is that implementation would be in the 80% to 90% range, not 100%.

By September, you know September is the ninth month of the year, so we will definitely be moving towards the figure,” she said, noting that funds for the Third Quarter would be released within the next two weeks.
She pleaded that there is neither lack of effort nor of goodwill.  “If we could go from 39% in May to 56% by mid-July, that shows a considerable leap and I'm quite confident that as we go month by month both us and the National Assembly will be able to look at it and say yes a good effort has been made for the country.”

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives gave the President the deadline of September within which to fully implement the budget or face its wrath.  The Representatives, threatened to impeach the President if he does not achieve the stated target.

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