Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, said the Federal Government had released N50 billion for the execution of constituency projects in the 2013 budget.
Okonjo-Iweala made the statement on Tuesday at an interactive session with the House of Representatives Joint Committee on Appropriation, Finance and Legislative compliance in Abuja.
The minister said all monies appropriated for constituency projects would be warehoused in an account at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) pending the readiness of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to execute the projects.
Okonjo-Iweala said the Ministry of Finance had opened a special account with CBN for constituency projects based on the directive of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The minister said that the nation was having shortfalls from oil revenue and customs duties.
She said Nigeria was losing about 400, 000 barrels of oil per day to vandalism and oil theft amounting to N160 million.
“The biggest challenge to the 2013 budget was the `oil quantity shock’ as there is a shortfall of about 400,000 barrels per day of crude production, worth about N160 billion due to crude oil theft, “she said.
Okonjo-Iweala said that in spite of the challenge, the implementation of the budget was moving on smoothly.
She said this was because N600 billion capital component was released in the first and second quarters and cash-backed with N585 billion.
The minister said that the 2013 budget utitlisation stood at 67 per cent.
She said the economy was performing well with the external reserves at $47 billion, Sovereign Wealth Fund at one billion dollars and the External Crude Account at five billion dollars.
She, however, denied making any statement to the effect that the economy would collapse at the end of September if the National Assembly did not pass the 2013 amendment budget.
The House had summoned the minister to appear before the joint committee over the statement.
