Prince Clem Agba, the immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, said that Benin-Auchi-Okene-Obajana Road has yet to be completed due to insufficient funds for the project.
Agba spoke on the road project while sharing his thoughts with audience at the grand reception and dinner night organised in his honour by the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Benin.
According to him, budgetary provisions had always been spread thin on projects that were usually inserted in the budget by the National Assembly such that money budgeted could not accomplish the projects.
He said that “with the national budget, there had been a lot of challenges. Yes, there had been improvements in terms of the cycle, but particularly as a person, I am not very happy with the content because we seem to spread ourselves so thin that we don’t have enough to do work.
“I hear people say that the National Assembly pads the budget. I wish they pad the budget because what they are doing is un-padding the budget. If they pad the budget, that means they are putting more money in it, right?
‘’And, so, you have more money to work? Right? But what they are doing is that they are removing from what have been provided and then creating other projects, making us spread too thin, and not having enough money to work.
“This is one of the things that had affected the Benin-Auchi-Okene-Obajana road, which started 15 years ago. Have I been a minister for fifteen years? I was only minister for three and a half years, yet I was the cause of the problem on that road because I tried to offer a solution.(NAN
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