The Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, on Wednesday, criticised the current system of centralised payment by the Ministry of Finance for capital projects executed by ministries, departments and agencies MDAs.

Consequently, the Minister made a strong case for the Federal Government to revert to the old system where monies were released to the agencies and MDAs for them to execute projects accordingly.

Fagbemi made the call when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Judiciary to defend the 2026 budget estimates of his Ministry.

He said, “The old system is better because you don’t need to know anybody before your allocation is released. The current system of centralised payment is plagued with so many difficulties, I don’t want to say complexities”.

Like all other ministries, execution of the capital component of the 2025 budget of the Justice Ministry recorded zero performance as the N869 million released was not cash-backed.

The non-execution of the 2025 capital projects by most MDAs led President Bola Tinubu to allow 70 per cent of them to be rolled over to 2026 as capital projects.

Unfortunately, the 30 per cent earmarked for execution in the 2025 budget has been bedevilled by a lack of fund releases and the cumbersome centralised payment system by the Ministry of Finance.

The Chairman Senate Committee on Judiciary, Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire, told the Minister that the Senate was worried about the delays in releases of funds, adding, “A number of us share that opinion that the old system is better, because the delay is dangerous, especially when it affects the justice sector, which is at the heart of our social coalition.

“Where the justice sector is delayed or is hamstrung through bureaucratic bottlenecks, then the system is put under pressure. So it is very important that we have an organisation, a process that responds speedily to the demands of the justice sector”.