Senate scrutinises N232.8b  FCT 2020 budget

Sanni Onogu and Tony Akowe, Abuja

The Senate on Thursday considered a Bill to authorise N232.8 billion for the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) for the 2020 fiscal year.

The consideration of the budget came barely 24 hours after the Upper Chamber received a formal request on it from President Muhammadu Buhari.

Giving a breakdown of the budget proposal, Senate Leader Yahaya Abdullahi said out of the N232,875,365,947 budgeted for next year, N53,876,241,095 is for personnel cost, N57,070,343,435 for overhead cost and N121,928,781,417 for capital projects.

The senator recalled that in the 2019 fiscal year, the FCTA had an appropriation of N243,374,511,007.00.

A breakdown of the 2019 expenditure, according to Abdullahi, showed that N41,999,045,982.01 was spent on personnel costs, N32,445,971,579 on overheads and N46,292,431,523.09 on capital projects.

The Senate Leader recalled that during the Year 2019, a total of N120,737,449,084.07 accrued to the FCT as revenue, an amount he said represents “about 50 per cent level of performance”.

He added: “The thrust of the FCT 2020 budget is to ensure an effective service-oriented administration in order to ensure completion of ongoing projects and the provision of effective services to residents of the FCT.”

Among projects to be implemented by the FCDA in the Year 2020 are: provision of infrastructural facilities to districts and road construction in Jahi, Wuye and Karmo with N6.3 billion; reconstruction and finalisation of Lower Usman Dam and Gurara Road pegged at N1.5 billion, and N3.5 billion for proposed counterpart funding for Greater Abuja Water Supply.

Others are: Construction of Cultural Centre and Millennium Tower at N1 billion; rehabilitation and expansion of Outer Southern Expressway from Villa Roundabout to Osex/Ring Road 1 Junction at N1 billion; N1.3 billion for completion of Roads B6, B12 and Circle Road, Abuja, Central Area, and N500 million for the provision of access road to Kabusa Garden.

The senators supported the Bill.

But Senators George Sekibo (PDP, Rivers East) and James Manager (PDP, Delta South) argued that the FCT’s budgets should always be presented by the minister to the National Assembly.

On Wednesday, Senate President Ahmad Lawan called for increased allocation to security in the FCTA’s 2020 budget to address increasing rate of insecurity in the nation’s capital city.

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Lawan’s call followed the second reading of the FCT budget.

He said: “I want to also ask whether we have so much provision in the National Priority Budget of the FCT for security. I’ve not seen anything for security here and I’m worried because I think the security situation in the FCT, not necessarily inside the Federal Capital itself, but the satellite towns where people are kidnapped, including one of our royal fathers.

“I believe that we need to look into that. Definitely, the security needs some attention from us, even if there is no provision. We should be able to prioritise and see which other subheads we can take money from to provide for security.”

Also, the House of Representatives is set to pass the FCT budget on December 19, 2019, to return the territory to the January to December budget cyrcle.

Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila directed the House Committee on FCT to work throughout this weekend on the budget and submit its report to the House so that the document can be passed before the House goes on Christmas break on December 19.