The Presidency says the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala will appear before the Senate on Thursday to give details about the 2012 budget performance.<\/p>\n
Minister of Information, Labaran Maku disclosed after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Vice-President Namadi Sambo.<\/p>\n
Maku said Okonjo-Iweala who doubles as the Coordinating Minister of the Economy was prepared to brief the Senate accurately on the budget performance to douse the controversy trailing it.<\/p>\n
The minister said the Federal Government was committed to proper implementation of the 2012 budget and urged Nigerians not to generate unnecessary controversy over it.<\/p>\n
“The Minister of Finance should be appearing before the Senate tomorrow to clarify.<\/p>\n
“It is better we stop the persistent controversies; Legislature says this, Executive says that. I think that it is really distracting the process of implementation of the budget.<\/p>\n
“What is most important at this stage is to tell you that we are working assiduously to execute the budget.<\/p>\n
“That is our mandate; that is our job; that is why we were appointed; that\u2019s why we have come to serve the people of Nigeria and I am sure that every minister, all of us, we know our duties, we know what to do.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Maku said Nigerians should avert their minds to the fact that the budget was passed by the National Assembly in March and assented to by the president in April<\/p>\n
He also identified the strict procurement process which made it mandatory that due process be followed in the award and implementation of any contract as another reason for delays.<\/p>\n
He assured that as soon as project implementation scaled through the procurement process people would see an upward spiral in the implementation of the budget.<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Senate had earlier summoned Okonjo-Iweala to appear before it on Tuesday, and address a public hearing by the Joint Committee on Appropriation and Finance on the Budget 2012 implementation.<\/p>\n
The minister did not show-up at the public hearing because she was on official trip to London to represent President Goodluck Jonathan at an investment forum.<\/p>\n
Deputy Senate President, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, had frowned at the development and said that the issue of budget performance should take precedence over any other assignment. (NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Presidency says the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala will appear before the Senate on Thursday to give details about the 2012 budget performance. Minister of Information, Labaran…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n