The North’s Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins has responded to reports that her Department has handed back unspent monies to the Department of Finance.
It’s been claimed that in the region of £180 million was unspent by her department. She says the money ion question had been earmarked for the A5, and most of it was given back for other projects.
In a statement this afternoon, Liz Kimmins says recent commentary around DfI ‘handing back’ capital funding over a two-year period misrepresents how government finance works.
She says her department was allocated specific funding by the executive that was earmarked for the A5.
She says the rules state that any unspent earmarked funding must be returned to the Department of Finance, and the reason much of this funding was returned, was due to the ongoing legal proceedings which have prevented her from proceeding to construction and spending this funding as intended.
She said she subsequently bid for additional funding for other projects across that two-year period, and her Department received £163m, allowing her to provide additional funding across roads, wastewater infrastructure and Translink.
