CSOs slam FG for budgeting N146bn for Lagos metro line
Leaders of civil society organisations have picked holes in the plan to transfer N146.14 billion to the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) as counterpart funding for the Lagos Green Line Metro Rail Phase 1 in the proposed 2025 federal budget. Speaking on the development Tuesday, Executive Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Barrister Eze Onyekpere, […]
Leaders of civil society organisations have picked holes in the plan to transfer N146.14 billion to the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) as counterpart funding for the Lagos Green Line Metro Rail Phase 1 in the proposed 2025 federal budget.
Speaking on the development Tuesday, Executive Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Barrister Eze Onyekpere, said that it was a misplaced priority and abuse of privilege of office.
He said that such decision to be discovered showed that it was not well intended as there was no debate on it at any level of national discuss.
“It beats imagination that federal government money would be deployed to a state project. More curious is that there is no single inter-state federal rail project in South East and South South where the bulk of the resources for the nation’s budget is coming from.
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“This should be jettison and the right things be done. The counterpart funding for the Lagos Green Line Metro Rail should not be another mis-governance,” Onyekpere said .
Another senior civil society organisation leader and human rights activist, who preferred not to be named, said there is nothing to justify using federal government budget to fund state project.
“I heard some justifying that it would be useful for all citizens of the country as Nigerians, especially due to the nature of Lagos. This is not a good excuse or reason to do the wrong thing disguised as the right thing,” the human rights activist said.
A former executive secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparent Initiative (NEITI), Waziri Adio, in his weekly column in THISDAY on Sunday, described some budgetary provisions as curious, citing the plan to transfer N146.14 billion to the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) as counterpart funding for the Lagos Green Line Metro Rail Phase 1.
The public policy analyst and founder of Agora Policy, Waziri Adio said it raised many questions as the proposed allocation for the metro line within a state is 65 per cent of the capital budget and 57 per cent of the entire budget of the Ministry of Transport.
“If this is counterpart funding from a recapitalised MOFI, why is the money coming from the budget of a federal ministry? Why can’t MOFI raise its counterpart funding from the market? How was the decision arrived at that this is a project to invest federal money into and will such facility be available to other states outside of Lagos?”
He said many proposals “do not pass the muster of necessity and regeneration or even transparency”.
The federal government has budgeted N146,141,117,570 as counterpart funding for the Lagos Green Line Metro Phase 1 under the Ministry of Transport in the proposed 2025 budget.
However, the ministry will pay the money to the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) and represents 57 per cent of the ministry’s budget of N256.73 billion.