Kemi Adeosun, the minister of finance has revealed that due to a lack of funds, the Federal government will be unable to fund every project on the 2016 budget and that agencies affected by this were not to come and lobby her for a release of funds.
She also disclosed that the federal government would release funds based on necessity.
The minister said this while at the house of Representatives during the ongoing sectoral debates.
She said the attention of the government was on the creation of jobs for Nigerians and a reduction in the cost of living.
She stressed that not every project could be completed and that the federal government would release a percentage to every affected agency which admittedly may mean the project won’t be finished.
She said, “So what we are now doing is project first. Tell us what you are going to do with the money, give us your milestones. I can’t promise you that every single agency will receive every single Naira in the budget, that will be untrue and that will be a misleading impression.
“However, what I will assure is that there will be no favouritism, there will be no need for anybody to come and lobby in our office for the release of funds. Funds will be released first on priority of projects, MDAs must make request for the capital and we must measure how the capital is spent.”
She also spoke on the issue of the increment of minimum wage, “The issue is not actually about minimum wage, the issue is about cost of living because even if you increase the minimum wage to N100, 000 and the cost of living is N120,000 then you have done nothing.
“What we have to address is the cost of living and this government addresses cost of living because it is investing in the things that make cost of living very high for the people such as power cost, transport cost, people spending hours on bad roads, it is being addressed, that is a cost.”
She also promised that the federal government was working on creating 500,000 jobs for unemployed youths, “We will employ 500,000 unemployed graduates to go into teaching, they will receive a stipend, they will relieve the families of those people, they will give those people a chance to develop their skills.”