The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, today confirmed that total capital cost released to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for the 2017 federal budget totalled N1,580,270,755,084.44
Adeosun made this known through a statement issued by the Director (Information) in her ministry, Hassan Dodo, in Abuja.
She stated that the total capital releases for 2017 was higher than the N1,219,471,747,443.00 total capital releases for 2016.
Giving a breakdown of the releases in the year under review, the minister stated that Power, Works and Housing got the highest allocation of N523,011,701,723.25 or 33.10 percent of the total capital releases.
The sector also received the highest releases in the 2016 capital budget, which was a total of N307,411,749,682.00, representing 25.21 percent of the 2016 capital budget releases.
According to her, the Defence and Security received the second highest capital releases of N197,596,016,072.02, representing 12.50 percent of the total capital releases for the year, compared to the N77,532,885,729.00 (about 6.36 percent) the sector got in the preceding year.
A further decomposition of the capital releases on sectoral basis in 2017 indicated that Agriculture and Water Resources received a total of N149,485,276,897.37, or 9.46 percent of the federal capital budget, an amount lower than the N143,121,925,241.00, representing11.74 percent of capital releases it got in 2016.
The minister also reported that Transportation sector received a total of N126,253,042,607.50, accounting for 7.99 percent of the capital releases last year, as against the N171,900,597,013.00, representing 14.10 percent of the 2016 capital releases it got.
Adeosun stated that Health and Education together got a total of N98,190,277,285.69, or 6.21 percent for 2017 as against N56,270,030,992.00, representing 4.61 percent of thecapital releases the two sectors received in 2016.
She disclosed that other sectors combined received a total of N485,734,440,498.61, or 30.74 percent of the 2017 capital releases, compared to the total ofN463,234,558,786.00, amounting to 37.99 percent of the capital releases disbursed to them in the preceding year.
Adeosun noted further that despite the economic challenges in the year under review, government was able to fully cash-back the capital releases, adding that the sustained high allocations to key sectors was a reflection of the Federal Government’s commitment to infrastructure development in the country.
She also hinted that government was working to attract private capital to complement government’s expenditures in these key areas.
