THE Federal Government missed its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) target for 2016 by N1.1trillion, Director-General of Budget Office, Dr Ben Akabueze, has said.
Akabueze, who addressed a joint session of the committees on appropriation from the Senate and House of Representatives on Thursday in the National Assembly, said that the development created a huge funding gap for the government, while it also affected the execution of the budget.
According to him, the government realized only N398billion out of the projected estimates of N1.506trillion, a development that led to the loss of about N1.15trillion.
He also said that the government has also so far spent the sum of N870 billion out of the projected N1.587trillion capital vote, representing 55% performance of the capital votes.
Also on Thursday, the Joint National Assembly Committee chased away a representative of the Governor of Central Bank, Dr Godwin Emefiele, an Acting Director, Mohammed Yakub, who announced he was representing the Governor.
The Joint Committee sent Yakub packing for lacking the competence of doing so.
Akabueze said: “Due to the huge funding gap, government had no any other option in the budget execution than to prioritise implementation of its capital projects, which based on N870.055billion already released out of the estimated N1.587trillion, is about 55 per cent performance.”
According to him, with the recent approval of more votes to be released from the Capital budget, not less than N1trillion would be released at the end of the day.
Accountant–General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris who gave a breakdown of the releases made so far in the 2016 budget said that a total of N2.209trillion have been released for personnel cost representing 100 percent another N444.122billion has been released for overheads, which he said represents 85 per cent.
He also said that the sum of N351billion has been released as statutory transfers which represent 100 per cent, while the sum of N1.3trillion has been released as debt service 100 per cent.
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed who also addressed the joint session, said that due to shortage of fund the government had to prioritise issuance of capital releases by focusing more on Agriculture and Mining sectors.
The Committee on Thursday however ordered the Governor of CBN, Emefiele to appear before it on Friday(today).
Emefiele had incurred the wrath of the committee for failing to informing the members of his absence before the meeting.
The Committee said that the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who however later attended the session had informed it of her possible late coming.
All attempts by Emefiele’s representative to tender an apology on his behalf were rebuffed as the committee insisted he leave the venue.
He was told: “We don’t want to hear anything from you, just leave here and tell your boss to meet the committee chairman unfailingly tomorrow (today).
“You lack the competence as an acting Director to stand before this committee representing the CBN Governor.”