2018 to be driven by PPPs, says Udoma

• Says no more funding of CSOs, media in budget monitoring

Much of the key infrastructural projects delivery captured in the N8.61 trillion 2018 Federal Government  Budget of Nigeria is to be driven under the Public Private Partnership [PPP] arrangement, the Minister of Budget and National Planning , Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma has said.
 
Speaking at the 2018 budget breakdown in Abuja, Udoma explained that the N295 billion provision made in the budget for major roads in the plan represented only the Federal Government’s commitments or counterpart funding for the projects, insisting that the amount was inadequate for the country’s infrastructural needs .
 
Udoma said: “ The N300 billion for roads is not sufficient. The amount of money we require to fix our infrastructure, including roads is in the trillions. That’s why we are looking for PPPs for almost everything . and the N300 billion we have earmarked for roads for next year just represents the Government’s counterpart funding. Most of the projects are to be driven by private sector funds.’’

Also, at the ceremony yesterday, the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze said the Budget Office of the Federation has scrapped the financing of civil societies organizations as well as journalists from the quarterly budget monitoring and evaluation  even though the sum of N2.1 billion approved for the Office in the 2017 Budget for enhanced stakeholders monitoring to ensure performance by the contractors.
 
Instead, Akabueze encouraged the media men and the civil society activists to source for funding for budget monitoring from their promoters or organizations and thereafter file their reports to his office.
 
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Alhaji Adamu Adamu ,yesterday declared as a big lie, the insuation in certain quarters that UNESCO had set 26 per cent of countries’ entire budget for the financing of education.
 
He said : “ I just returned from Paris for the UNESCO Conference and I took the matter up with the DG and he said never has there been a time that UNESCO set a minimum education  financing level of 26 per cent for countries. So there is nothing like that. However, I am pleading with the Federal Government to raise my allocation from N450 billion to at least half a billion,” pleaded Adamu who was recting to a question asked by a stskeholder on when Nigeria’s education funding would get to 26 per cent.