The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Wale Edun on Wednesday told Senators that the Federal Government has made progress in its ongoing forensic investigation into the N30trillion Ways and Means loans advanced to the immediate past administration by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
He also said that the take off of the electric and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles has been held up by a spike in the freight costs.
He pledged that his ministry would intensify efforts in monitoring the revenue generating agencies to be up and doing.
Edun made these assertions when he and the Accountant General of the Federation, Dr. Mrs Oluwatoyin Madein, appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriation Abuja over budget performance.
The Minister added that debt service was up to date.
Edun said: “The procurement of electric and CNG buses and conversion kits, more importantly, has been held up by a spike in the freight costs.
“It’s just the ingenuity of one of the young men that is in that business that we have got a bulk carrier that has a lower freight cost.
“Otherwise, the trade cost per bus became daunting and it made people just hold up to see whether in fact this procurement was profitable for them.”
On debt payments, he said, “We have paid $700 million in debt services for 420 national development agencies and others.”
Speaking on the ways and means, Edun said: “We are also interrogating the N22.7 trillion that we met on the ground. We had instituted forensic audit to see the impact.
“We are also interrogating the revenues that are due to us from everybody because we need to in view of the fact that Ways and Means is going down rather than up. So we are servicing all the debts.”
On its part, the Senate Committee on Appropriation urged the Federal Government to intensify efforts in funding the capital components of the three national budgets which are running concurrently in the country.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee, Senator Solomon Adeola who made this assertion lamented the poor funding of the capital components of the budgets and urged the Coordinating Minister for the Economy to improve on it.
Adeola said,: “It is the capital component of the budgets that will showcase this government largely in terms of performances.
“The capital components tends to showcase various projects that will be executed by this government and people can say, oh, the government is doing this, it’s doing that.
“That is why we are emphasising on the performance of 2024 capital component of the project.
“The N1.84billion achieved so far out of a N9 trillion capital expenditure component is nothing to write home about.
“I would want you to please look towards this direction. And I want you to do more engagement with the ministries and departments and agencies of the government.”
