Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says despite various evidence put forward by some Ministers during their budget defence at the National Assembly, the 2016 budget was not padded because the total figure voted for all ministries didn’t exceed N6.08 trillion. Lai Mohammed said this while speaking to newsmen in Lagos today February 20th.
“The total for every ministry has remained exactly the same as what was submitted to the national assembly. A lot has been said about the budget. Let make clear that nobody can ever accuse this government of padding any budget. The total of all ministries put together has not exceeded N6.08 trillion that was submitted. It is factually incorrect to say that the budget was padded. This is the first time in the history of this country that a government will embark what is called zero based budget. Before now, the budget system was what was called an enveloped system. In an envelope system, there is no justification as to why we need N30 billion for a structure. This year, we decide that every ministry must have a zero based budget. In other word, you must justify and explain why you need N100 billion. This is very good system, the soft ware for it was also very different. The personnel were not used to it. Now, in the process we got to national assembly. What the ministers do is to have a broad overview of the budget. The template used by the budget office is uniform for all ministers.”he said