The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, indicated on Friday that the Federal Government had not recovered N5.15tn owed to it by third parties.
The PUNCH had reported on March 31, 2021 that Ahmed disclosed that the government had been able to recover 49.7bn out of the N5.2tn debt owed to it by the third parties.
She reiterated this on Friday at the Executive Intelligence Management Course 14 of the National Institute for Security Studies held in Abuja.
The minister said the Project Lighthouse was one of the many initiatives the government, through her ministry, had implemented to ensure good governance and security in the country.
She said the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had demonstrated its strong commitment to sustainable development, governance and security by the allocation of financial resources.
Ahmed said, “The security agencies are prioritised in the allocation of our limited revenues and as an example, about 86 per cent of the 2021 Supplementary Budget was dedicated to the capital and recurrent expenditure needs of the security agencies to supplement the allocations in the 2021 Amended Budget.
“Several initiatives to promote good governance are also funded through the Federal Budget supplemented with the assistance of development partners.”
She described Project Lighthouse as a data-driven artificial intelligence engine that provides the ministry with an intelligence and profiling platform to aid in policy formulation, implementation and impact assessment.
“The second phase of implementation of Project Lighthouse has been approved by the Federal Executive Council and so far, we have been able to aggregate N5.2tn worth of debts owed to Government by third parties, of which N49.7bn of this amount has been recovered,” the minister added.
She said her ministry would continue to work closely with relevant stakeholders “to make Nigeria a safe and secure environment conducive to sustainable development”.
