TheCable

Ben Akabueze, director general of the budget office of the federation, says funds were withheld for duplicated projects discovered by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

Bolaji Owasanoye, chairman of the ICPC, had disclosed that 257 projects amounting to N20.138 billion were duplicated in the 2021 budget.

Owosanoye had said the commission tracked 1083 projects across the country with the exception of Borno and Zamfara states, owing to security challenges.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Friday, Akabueze said 54 out of the 295 projects were not duplications but only had description issues.

He said every project in the budget had a unique identifier, adding that funds were withheld for 185 projects that were indeed duplicated.

“The ICPC came up with a report, which they sent to us about duplicated projects that they found in the budget. We did our own review, we found that 54 of those projects were not actually duplications but they were issues with project descriptions” he said.

“This description made them look the same but they are not the same. Every project in the budget has a unique identifier.

“And which were found to indeed be duplicated, released funding was withheld from such a project. From the list we received from the ICPC, there are only 185 duplicated projects, 54 were not.”