postpone public hearing indefinitely
The scheduled investigative public hearing on the none implementation of the 2015 capital projects for Thursday, was stalled following the refusal of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to submit their report to the Adhoc Committee headed by Ahman Pategi (APC-Kwara).
On arrival at the venue of the public hearing, four of the staff assigned to the venue, informed BusinessDay and others that the event had been postponed.
Another staff that spoke under the condition of anonymity disclosed that only few of the MDAs submitted their reports, hence the need for the postponement.
“I learnt that the public hearing has been postponed because as at yesterday (Wednesday) night, only few of the ministries and parastatals invited made submission to the committee,” the staff said.
When asked to name some of the MDAs that complied so far, the source declined.
The investigative public hearing was sequel to the motion on the non-implementation of the N700.78 billion component of the N4.4 trillion approved in the 2015 Appropriation Act, Federal Government budget and serial breach of the Fiscal Responsibility Act by the Federal Ministry of Finance and threats to my effective representation of my constituency, sponsored by Patrick Asadu (PDP-Enugu).
During the consideration of the motion, the lawmakers expressed concerns over the report that over 11,000 projects were abandoned across the country and cautioned that due to time value of money, further delays in the implementation of the 2015 budget will expose the country to higher eventual expenditures on the same projects.
The Committee is also expected to assess the performance of Federal Ministry of Finance in carrying out its mandate as contained in the Appropriation Act and section 30(1,2) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 and report back to the House on resumption which is about the last quarter of the 2015 financial year.
