The federal government has announced that it will use over N250 billion of recovered looted funds to finance the 2017 Budget.
However, the said “recovered loots” does not yet exist anywhere as they are still to be recovered.
The National Budget Office [NBO] dropped this hint on Monday, saying the said monies were to be recovered from corrupt government officials.
NBO Director General of the office, Mr Ben Akabueze, disclosed this while answering questions at the public presentation of the 2017 Budget proposals at the State House in Abuja.
Akabueze said that only N72 billion of the money had already been recovered.
“We are projecting N258.6 billion looted funds to be part of the revenue to finance 2017 budget.
“Also to be included in budget financing is 320 million dollars, which is N97.6 billion recovered Abacha loots expected from the Swiss government.
“The balance of N90 billion will be from other expected recovery loots which are now at advanced stages,’’ he said.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma said that based on the key assumption and budgetary reform initiatives, the 2017 budget envisaged a total Federal Government revenue of N4.94 trillion.
Udoma said that the figure exceeded the 2016 financial year projection by 28 percent.
“The projected revenue receipt from oil is N1.985 trillion and non-oil is N1.373 trillion.
“The contribution of oil revenue is 40.2 percent compared to 19 percent the financial year of 2016 in addition to cost reduction, higher price, exchange rate and additional oil-related revenues,’’ he said.
It will be recalled that the Federal Government said it will fund the 2017 budget with recovered loot and renewed oil licences, even as it targets N10 trillion revenue generation in the coming year.
It emphasised that the 2017 budget would also be financed through royalties and promissory notes.
The revelation came as President Muhammadu Buhari presents the 2017 Appropriation Bill before the joint session of the National Assembly today.
This is even as some members of the House of Representatives expressed apprehension that with the alleged poor implementation of the 2016 budget, there was the possibility that the 2017 budget implementation could suffer the same fate.
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