The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has said that Mambila Power Project was not removed from the Budget of the Ministry of Power, but that it was rather not prioritised by the Ministry of Power when the ministry submitted its 2021 Budget.
The Minister disclosed this on Tuesday during a budget defence session with the House of Representatives Committee on Finance.
She disclosed that the Ministry of Power exceeded the available envelope for its budget.
She explained that ministries are given a budget envelope within which to prepare their budgets in which only priority projects are adopted.
According to her: “Every ministry, department and agency has an envelope, and they are supposed to prioritise based on their allocation. The finance Ministry does not decide for other ministries what their priorities should be.”
Meanwhile, the Senate had earlier expressed displeasure when it discovered that the much talked about Mambila Power Project was not captured by the federal government in the 2021 Budget.
This was after the Minister of Power, Mr. Mamman Sale, appeared before the Senate Committee on Power for the 2021 Budget defence session of the ministry and its agencies.
The Mambila Power Project was designed to help improve power generation and supply in Nigeria. The hydropower project has a generation capacity of 3,050 Mega Watt (MW), when completed.
