By Yahaya Umar
Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, has lamented the zero release of the capital component of the ministry’s 2025 budget.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim, appeared before the Senate Committee on Women Affairs to defend the ministry’s 2025 budget performance and proposal for 2026 fiscal year.
According to her, of the N89.8 billion approved for capital expenditure for 2025, only N394.8 million was released.
This, she said, represented 0.44% release with 99.56% not released, a development the minister attributed to non performance of the ministry’s capital projects.
Giving further breakdown of the allocation for the last fiscal year, Sulaiman-Ibrahim said of the N2.06 billion meant for personnel cost, N1. 9 billion was released, representing 96.58%. According to her, 99.9% of the released sum was spent on salaries and allowances.
For overhead, the Minister said N2.8 billion was approved for the ministry but that N471.5 million was released, representing 78% of the budgeted sum.
The minister however, disclosed that her ministry received N450 million intervention fund, which was expended on responding to the urgent needs of survivors of women, children and gender-based violations.
The Ministry’s internally generated revenue for the year under review stood at N4.4 million, which was realised mainly from tender fees.
For 2026, the ministry tendered a total budget proposal of N134. 2 billion, with the following breakdown: capital – N131.2 billion; overhead – N810. 9 million; and personnel – N2.1 billion among others.
Giving an appraisal of the ministry’s budget performance, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Women Affairs, Senator Ireti Kingibe, observed the poor performance.
She, however, said the Women Affairs ministry suffered the same cash crunch as other MDAs in the previous fiscal years.
Senator Kingibe further said making a budget proposal is one thing, but getting funding is another matter entirely.
She, however, assured that minister and her management team that the committee would do its best in treating the proposal, stating however that getting the funds released is entirely outside the brief of the committee.
