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The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mrs. Oluwatoyin Madein, yesterday, said the era of payments for yet-to-be-awarded projects was over.She said likewise, projects that were not included in the procurement plan, “will be very difficult to implement,” going forward.
Says N743.737bn released for capital projects as at August, N487.421bn being processed for September, October
The AGF read the riot act at the opening of a one-day capacity-building programme themed: “Implementation of the Cash Plan Policy in Nigeria: Prospects and Challenges”, which was organised by the Association of Public Procurement Practitioners of Nigeria (APPON) FCT Chapter in collaboration with the Office of the AGF and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
She further disclosed that with the bottom-up cash plan introduced by the federal government, N743.737 billion had been released for capital budget implementation as of August while about N487.421 billion was being processed for September and October 2023.Madein, however, put the total releases at N1.2 trillion, noting that compared to the correspondent periods in 2022, N5 trillion had been released while actual implementation was below N1 trillion.
She also said the era of uncertainty over capital budget releases was over as only implemented projects would be funded henceforth.The AGF said it was expected that projects that were due for payments, would have undergone all the procedures and preparations, adding that they don’t necessarily have to be completed projects as ongoing projects with milestones and interim payment certificates will be qualified.
Likewise, she pointed out that programmes of the MDAs that involved personnel movement, and payment of DTAs that were impeded in the capital budget would be honoured for payments once approved – details necessary to make the payments are available at the time of uploading the cash plan.
She said, “It has been made in a way that on a monthly basis, the MDAs are required to gather all the payments that are due and upload them and they may even be due in the next few days or next few weeks but can successfully be uploaded with the criteria that has been set out.
“Once they are uploaded and once the fund that very month is available, they will all be paid. And what it means is that the beneficiaries that have already been mapped out that their details have been supplied would be the ones to be paid.
“It is no longer the time they would say, ‘procurement, I don’t want you to award the contract to that company, give it to another company’. The era is over. You will be at peace with your principal and everybody will be at peace.”
“There won’t be any area where you will be made to do something very different from what you work and procurement plan had spelt out from the beginning of the year.
“So, it is appropriate for me to encourage procurement officers should embrace this policy very well and ensure that the policy is working because it has lots of prospects.“It saves the country from running helter-skelter to seek money at the beginning of the year while the same government will continue to pay interest on the fund that is not being deployed.”
