Era of Payments for Unawarded Contracts Over, AGF Declares

*Says N743.737bn released for capital projects as at August, N487.421bn being processed for September, October

James Emejo in Abuja

The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mrs. Oluwatoyin Madein, yesterday, said the era of payments for yet-to-be-awarded projects was over.
She said likewise, projects that were not included in the procurement plan, “will be very difficult to implement,” going forward.

The AGF read the riot act at the opening of a one-day capacity-building programme themed: “Implementation of the Cash Plan Policy in Nigeria: Prospects and Challenges”, which was organised by the Association of Public Procurement Practitioners of Nigeria (APPON) FCT Chapter in collaboration with the Office of the AGF and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).

 She further disclosed that with the bottom-up cash plan introduced by the federal government, N743.737 billion had been released for capital budget implementation as of August while about N487.421 billion was being processed for September and October 2023.
Madein, however, put the total releases at N1.2 trillion, noting that compared to the correspondent periods in 2022, N5 trillion had been released while actual implementation was below N1 trillion.

She also said the era of uncertainty over capital budget releases was over as only implemented projects would be funded henceforth.
The AGF said it was expected that projects that were due for payments, would have undergone all the procedures and preparations, adding that they don’t necessarily have to be completed projects as ongoing projects with milestones and interim payment certificates will be qualified.

Likewise, she pointed out that programmes of the MDAs that involved personnel movement, and payment of DTAs that were impeded in the capital budget would be honoured for payments once approved – details necessary to make the payments are available at the time of uploading the cash plan.

She said, “It has been made in a way that on a monthly basis, the MDAs are required to gather all the payments that are due and upload them and they may even be due in the next few days or next few weeks but can successfully be uploaded with the criteria that has been set out.
“Once they are uploaded and once the fund that very month is available, they will all be paid. And what it means is that the beneficiaries that have already been mapped out that their details have been supplied would be the ones to be paid.

“It is no longer the time they would say, ‘procurement, I don’t want you to award the contract to that company, give it to another company’. The era is over. You will be at peace with your principal and everybody will be at peace.”
She said, “There won’t be any area where you will be made to do something very different from what you work and procurement plan had spelt out from the beginning of the year.

“So, it is appropriate for me to encourage procurement officers should embrace this policy very well and ensure that the policy is working because it has lots of prospects.
“It saves the country from running helter-skelter to seek money at the beginning of the year while the same government will continue to pay interest on the fund that is not being deployed.”

According to her, the cash plan also, “helps in implementing budgets as at the time we have already programmed that they will be implemented.
“So, the implementation will no longer be delayed, so also the payment will no longer be delayed. With your capital budget, you have the chance of drawing 100 per cent in a month if you are convinced that you have implemented all the projects and they are all ready for payment.
“But if you have not implemented your projects, it becomes very difficult and that’s why we hear of a few agitations because they’ve not done all the necessary activities that are supposed to have taken place prior to payment.”

“So, it is appropriate that we all embrace this policy and support the Office of the Accountant General (OAGF) to ensure that it works. It makes life easier for everybody and the government is even the bigger and larger beneficiary of this kind of policy.”
The AGF further pointed out that in an attempt to end the continuous extension of the budget circle, the office came up with the Bottom-up Cash Management and drafted an implementation guideline in June 2020 alongside a treasury circular issued on May 29 2020.
She stated that in order to boost the implementation of the policy, the then Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning sought and got presidential approval on August 24, 2022.

This was followed immediately with a review of the Cash Management Guideline and the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in January 2023 by the OAGF cash management team and the GIFMIS team in collaboration with the World Bank experts engaged by the OAGF.

She stressed that prior to the “Implementation of the policy, the Capital Development Fund was committed to the tune of over N1.5 trillion year in year out” adding that these “commitments remained so for months in the hands of MDAs indicating that the actual cash needs of MDAs were ignored in the releases of funds thereby slowing down the utilization/implementation of already allocated funds while government continuously pay interest on borrowed funds already committed.”