The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to immediately make public details of all appropriations and statutory transfers in the 2014 budget, in the public interest.
The order was issued by Justice Abubakar Abdu-Kafarati in his judgement on February 25, 2014, in the legal application filed by the Centre for Social Justice against the minister.
Kafarati asked the minister to release to the group and the general public, details of releases in the budget to some key government agencies, specifically, the National Assembly, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC); National Judicial Council (NJC); Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Universal Basic Education (UBE) and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Executive Director of Centre for Social Justice, Eze Onyekwere, disclosed this at the weekend during the 2013 annual general meeting of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Abuja.
He said the group approached the court to compel the minister to respect the law and release the information pursuant under the Freedom of Information and the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Onyekwere said following observed acts of impunity and fiscal lawlessness by government, it became necessary that details of such allocations be revealed to the people, who are the owners of the budget under democracy.
But the spokesperson to the minister, Paul Nwabuikwu, said he totally and completely disagreed with the mindset by government critics that it only engaged in wastes and corruption.
