By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Senators on Tuesday approved N329,963,491,523 as budget for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for 2021 with Personnel Costs taking N74,323,382,813 Overheads (N58,728,614,466), and Capital Projects (N196,911,494,243).
FCT Committee Chairman, Senator Abubakar Kyari (APC, Borno North), disclosed that the performance of the 2020 budget was 88 per cent as of December 2020.
He said most projects executed by the FCT Administration (FCTA) and the Federal Capital Development Administration (FCDA) are still ongoing “due to overbearing ineptitude of getting the Due Process Certificates on time.”
New and ongoing projects are not sufficiently funded due to delay in the release of funds caused by bureaucratic bottlenecks.
According to Kyari, the 2021 budget was expanded by N30 billion from additional statutory allocation distributed from the Excess Crude Account for receipts from January to May 2021.
Also added were anticipated allocations for June to December and Stamp Duty Refunds, which bring the total budget to N329,963,491,523.