{"id":21169,"date":"2019-10-01T18:54:09","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T18:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=21169"},"modified":"2019-10-01T18:54:09","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T18:54:09","slug":"buhari-directs-release-of-n600bn-for-capital-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=21169","title":{"rendered":"Buhari directs release of N600bn for capital projects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By <strong>Ismaila Chafe<\/strong> (NAN)<br \/><br \/> President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to release\u00a0N600 billion\u00a0for Capital Expenditure in the next three months.<br \/><br \/> The President gave the directive in his nationwide broadcast to mark the Nigeria\u2019s 59th Independence Anniversary on Tuesday in Abuja.<br \/><br \/> He stated that the directive was informed by his administration\u2019s desire to significantly increase investments in the nation critical infrastructure.<br \/><br \/> According to him, the implementation of the 2019 Capital Budget, which was only approved in June 2019, will be accelerated to ensure that critical priority projects are completed or substantially addressed.<br \/><br \/> He revealed that the Federal Government had so far released N1.74trillion for execution of various capital projects in the 2018 fiscal year.<br \/><br \/> \u201cIn this regard, we are significantly increasing investments in critical infrastructure. Last year, capital releases only commenced with the approval of the Budget in June 2018.<br \/><br \/> \u201cHowever, as at 20th June this year, up to\u00a0N1.74 trillion\u00a0had been released for capital projects in the 2018 fiscal year,\u2019\u2019 he said.<br \/><br \/> The president noted that the exchange rate in the last three years had remained stable, with robust reserves of\u00a042.5 billion dollars, up from\u00a023 billion dollars\u00a0in Oct. 2016.<br \/><br \/> He added that, to maximise impact, the federal government would continue to increasingly welcome and encourage private capital for infrastructure development through Public Private Partnerships.<br \/><br \/> \u201cThrough the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, which I initiated in January this year, we are giving incentives to private sector inflow of over\u00a0N205 billion\u00a0in 19 Nigerian roads and bridges of 794.4km across in 11 States of the Federation.<br \/><br \/> \u201cAs we push to diversify the economy, we still remain focused on optimising the revenues generated from the oil and gas sector.<br \/><br \/> \u201cWe will, working with the Legislature, soon pass the Petroleum Industry Bill and amendments to the\u00a0Deep Offshore Act and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act\u00a0into law, to ensure Government obtains a fair share of oil revenues, whilst encouraging private sector investment,\u2019\u2019 he said.<br \/><br \/> Buhari maintained that his administration would also continue the fight against illegal bunkering of crude oil and the smuggling of refined petroleum products across the borders.<br \/><br \/> He said this would include the diligent prosecution and conviction of offenders found guilty of these acts.<br \/><br \/> \u201cWhilst Nigeria remains committed to free and fair continental and international trade, we will not hesitate to take all necessary steps to tackle illegal smuggling, transshipment and other predatory trade practices that destroy jobs in our country,\u2019\u2019 the president added.<br \/><br \/> On power, Buhari reiterated his administration\u2019s determination to reform the power sector to ensure speedy socio-economic transformation across the country.<br \/><br \/> \u201cWe are resolute in reforming the power sector. In August this year, we launched the Presidential Power Initiative to modernize the National Grid in 3 phases: starting from 5 Gigawatts to 7 Gigawatts, then to 11 Gigawatts by 2023, and finally 25 Gigawatts afterwards.<br \/><br \/> \u201cThis programme, in partnership with the German Government and Siemens, will provide end-to-end electrification solutions that will resolve our transmission and distribution challenges,\u2019\u2019 he disclosed.<br \/><br \/> According to him, the programme will also localise the development and assembly of smart meters as well as the operations and maintenance capabilities of transmission and distribution infrastructure.<br \/><br \/> He expressed delight\u00a0with the improved inter-agency collaboration between the Ministry of Power and the regulators in the banking and power sectors to ensure that electricity sales, billings and collections were automated and become cashless.<br \/><br \/> \u201cThese initiatives are important to ensure that the technical and collection losses in the sector are substantially reduced.<br \/><br \/> \u201cI remain confident that Nigerians will have affordable and uninterrupted electricity supply in the not too distant future.<br \/><br \/> \u201cOur efforts to improve the power sector will complement other infrastructure investments projects under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund,\u2019\u2019 he said.<br \/><br \/> He acknowledged that the fund was investing in the Mambilla Power Plant project, as well as key economic road infrastructure such as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge and Abuja-Kano Expressway.<br \/><br \/> The President expressed optimism that the first set of these projects remain on track to be completed by 2022. <br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ismaila Chafe (NAN) President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to release\u00a0N600 billion\u00a0for Capital Expenditure in the next three months. The President gave the directive in his nationwide broadcast to mark the Nigeria\u2019s 59th Independence Anniversary on Tuesday in Abuja. He stated that the directive was informed by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}