By Ngozi Onyeakusi—– The 2021 budget of the Federal Government contains 316 duplicated projects valued at N39.5bn, BudgIT, a civic-tech non-profit organisation in Nigeria declared on Tuesday. BudgIT said its investigations further revealed that 115 of the duplicated projects were from the Federal Ministry of Health, describing the development as disturbing. The Lagos-based firm disclosed this in a statement issued by its Communications Associate, Iyanu Fatoba, which was titled ‘BudgIT highlights corruption loopholes in the budget process, calls for urgent budget reforms’. But the Federal Government decided to stay mute over the allegation, as repeated efforts to get the response of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning were futile. Calls and text messages to the media aide of the finance minister, Yunusa Abdullahi, on the allegation of BudgIT were not answered nor replied to up till the time of filing this report on Tuesday night. The advocacy organisation, in its statement, said, “Our investigations into the 2021 budget revealed at least 316 duplicated capital projects worth N39.5bn, with 115 of those duplicate projects occurring in the Ministry of Health. “This is very disturbing especially considering the health infrastructure deficit and the raging COVID-19 pandemic affecting