2026 Budget: Justice Minister calls for return to former payment system for MDAs, others

By Haruna Salami

The current system of centralized payment by the Ministry of Finance for capital projects executed by ministries, departments and agencies MDAs has been heavily criticised by the Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN).
The Minister made a strong case for the Federal Government to revert to the old system where monies are released to the agencies and MDAs for them to execute projects accordingly.
Fagbemi made the call at 2026 budget defence by the Ministry of Justice before the Senate Committee on Judiciary on Wednesday.
He said “the old system is better because you don’t need to know anybody before your allocation is released”.
However, “the current system of centralized system of payment is plagued with so many difficulties, I don’t want to say complexities”, he said.
Like all other ministries, execution of the capital component of 2025 budget of the Justice Ministry recorded zero performance as even the N869 million releases was not cash backed.
The non-execution of the 2025 capital projects by most MDAs made President Bola Tinubu to allow 70 percent of it to be rolled over to 2026 as capital projects.
Unfortunately, the 30 per cent earmarked for execution in the 2025 budget has been bedeviled by lack of fund releases and the cumbersome centralized payment system by the Ministry of Finance.
The Chairman Senate Committee on Judiciary, Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire (SAN) told minister that the Senate is worried about the delays in releases of funds, adding “a number of us share that opinion that the old system is better, because the delay is dangerous, especially when it affects the justice sector, which is at the heart of our social coalition.