Our budget was inflated by N11bn – FERMA MD

Managing Director of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Nurudeen Rafindadi, told members of the House of Representatives Committee on FERMA that the Ministries of Finance and Works and Housing raised the 2021 budget of the agency by over N11bn.

He also said he had no knowledge of the increase.

The drama ensued at the Budget Defence of the agency when a member of the committee, Yusuf Gadgi, asked the FERMA MD why the budget had suddenly increased by N11bn billion.

Rafindadi had appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on FERMA in Abuja to defend the proposal by the agency.

But Rafindadi denied the increment, saying, “Our proposal of budget as it is today is submitted to the Federal Ministry of Works, and the reason is that FERMA is an agency under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Works. We are represented at the cabinet by the Honourable Minister of Works (and Housing, Babatunde Fashola).

“Our budget is subsumed in the envelope of the Federal Ministry of Works, so the ministry is asked by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to submit its budget within a specified envelope and that envelope includes budgets of agencies under the supervision of the ministry, of which FERMA is one. So, we get instructions to submit our budget through the Ministry of Works; we submit it to the Ministry of Works.

“What happens after is between the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, and subsequently until reaches the House. We only know what was in our budget after submission of the budget to the National Assembly.”