The minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has commended the Federal Government’s allocation to capital expenditure in the 2016 budget.
Fashola, who fielded questions as guest on the popular Channels Sunrise Daily programme, spoke on a number of national issues including the state of the power sector and what the government is doing to make the system more efficient.
On the delay in the passing of the Budget, Fashola, described it as regrettable, however and attributed the delay to what he called “blending of the team” which is made up of the Executive and the Legislature adding that consultations are going on at the highest levels of the two parties to resolve the grey areas.
The Minister said what would be important in this year’s budget was that it could put more funds into the public space, adding, “I must reemphasize this point, a budget where you have 85 percent, almost 90 percent recurrent expenditure really is a budget that excludes the larger majority of the society because it just goes to government spending”.
“Now government official are important, public servants are important for driving the process, but those who formulate budget policies must be careful not to over spend on the less than one percent who drive the process. The 30 percent Capital Expenditure planned in this year’s budget is a significant departure from the old and it helps us to redistribute wealth in the society”, he said.
