By Gloria Ikibah
The Ministry of Finance has called for an upward review of allocation in the 2025 budget.
Minister of State for Finance, Doris Uzoka-Anite stated this on Tuesday at the National Assembly during the ministry’s 2024 budget defense and 2025 budget proposal.
Uzoka-Anite reported a 100 per cent performance in personnel and overhead costs for 2024, and said that only 22 per cent of its capital budget has been release.
She said “The total budget for 2024 for the Federal Ministry of Finance was N8.10bn. Our performance based on 2024 was 100 per cent for overhead and 22 per cent for capital.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Lydia Jafiya, who advocated for increased funding in the 2025 fiscal year, said though the building housing the Ministry looks good externally, there was a need for rehabilitation of the offices.
“Our office looks good from the outside but the inside needs a lot of rehabilitation. We hope that you can improve our capital allocation as well as the overhead. And we think that together with the Senate Committee on Finance, we can improve our capital allocation and our overhead. The Minister of State gave a figure of N38bn as a total for 2025 but we will need additional N25bn as a way of improving our budget envelope,” she said.
But the request for more funding by the Finance Ministry did not go well with a member of the CoCommitteeRep. Amobi Ogah who questioned that, “If the Ministry of Finance could only have 22 per cent release, what is the hope of other agencies? Is there any hope for us in 2025?”
Other agencies present at the defence session included the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) and Ministry of Finance Incorporated.