The Senate on Tuesday approved N329,963,491,523bn as statutory budget for the Federal Capital Territory for the year 2021.

The passage followed the consideration of the report of the Committee on Federal Capital Territory on the FCT Appropriation Bill, 2021.

Chairman of the Committee, Senator Abubakar Kyari (APC, Borno North), said from the projected revenue of N329,963,491,523, the sum of N74,323,382,813 is for personnel costs; N58,728,614,466 for overheads; and N196,911,494,243 for capital projects.

He stated that the overall performance of the FCT 2020 Statutory Budget Allocation was 88 per cent as of 31st December 2020.

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Kyari further disclosed that most of the projects executed by the Federal Capital Territory Administration and the Federal Capital Development Administration were still ongoing “due to overbearing ineptitude of getting the Due Process Certificates on time.”

He observed that new and ongoing projects were not sufficiently funded due to delay in the release of funds, occasioned by bureaucratic bottlenecks.

The lawmaker added that projected revenue accrued to FCT Administration was stretched by N30bn, due to additional revenue derived from additional statutory allocation received from the differential distributed from the Excess Crude Account for receipts from January to May 2021, and expected receipts for the remaining seven months of the year; and Stamp Duty Refunds.

According to him, the Committee on FCT consequently increased the fiscal framework to accommodate revenue receipts from additional statutory allocation and stamp duty fees to bring the total expenditure to N329,963,491,523bn.