By Luka Binniyat
PRESIDENT Jonathan Goodluck Wednesday wrote the two chambers of the National Assembly asking for approval to extend the 2010 Appropriation Act to 31st December, 2011.

In the letter,which was read in the Senate and the House of Representatives Chambers, the President agreed that the budget has suffered challenges as a result of its late passage and its review at the National Assembly.

The President in the letter said: “Regarding the implementation of the 2010 budget, there have been certain challenges attributed to the delays in adjusting the budget through the 2010 Amendment Budget,and the uncertainty this amendment process introduced into the spending procurement and other work plans of MDAs. These challenges have adversely affected the capital utilisations and performance of some MDAs to varying degrees.

“However, capital budget implementation has generally improved during the course of the year. To improve the ultimate performance ratios, it may be necessary to extend the implementation of the 2010 capital vote to 31st March, 2011.

“Consequently, I am constrained to approach the National Assembly with the request for the extension of the implementation of the capital budget to 31st March 2011. It is my hope that the National Assembly will, as usual, kindly consider and approve this request expeditiously”, he said.

It would be recalled that the Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga had last month, appeared before the House of Representatives in plenary to explain why the 2010 budget was under-implemented.

The Minister, in a shocking response, informed the Reps that the problem of implementation of the 2010 budget was not due to lack of funds.

He informed the House that so far, N749 billion out of the N1.7 trillion in the capital budget for the year, is backed by cash. But, he observed that out of the N749 billion, about N352 billion is lying idle at the Central Bank of Nigeria, as Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government (MDAs) have not accessed it.

The Minister said that the N749 billion represents 53% budget implementation, which the Reps hotly disputed, saying that only N367 billion utilised by MDAs should be taken as the budget performance level.

Aganga then informed them that the President would come up with a demand for the expansion of the 2010 budget.