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National Assembly wants to pass 2018 Budget by next week, here is why it was delayed till now

The National Assembly has been accused of delaying the passage of the 2018 Appropriation Bill four month since it was presented by President Muhammadu Buhari, with the newest date set to May 8, from the initial April 24.

Speaking to journalists in Abuja, Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abudulrasak Namdas, said the bill would be treated at the House next week and would then be passed.

“We have not been able to pass the budget last week, but by the grace of God, we will lay it next Tuesday and pass it hopefully same day. We will pass this budget next week. I am not speculating. I am telling you the fact. This is something that has to do with national interest.”

He also said the House would observe three-day mourning in protest for the various discriminatory killings in the Country, adding that plenary would be suspended, but not in a manner that would compromise national assignments.

Early Debates

On November 7, 2017, President Buhari presented a budget proposal of N8.6Trillion for the 2018 fiscal year to a joint session of the National Assembly. It was a 16% increase over the N7.298 trillion of 2017 Budget.

Of the N8.6 trillion budget, N456 billion is for Statutory Transfer, N2 trillion for Debt Servicing, N3 trillion for Recurrent-Non-Debt Expenditure, while N2 trillion is for Capital Expenditure.

As soon as Buhari presented the Bill, both Chambers of the Assembly began the traditional debates over its passage.

Issues with the 2017 Budget

Both Assemblies faulted the presentation of the 2018 Budget when the capital component of the 2017 budget had not been implemented up to 20%.

The Senate urged the Federal Government to sell or scrap agencies such as the National Orientation Agency, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Voice of Nigeria and the Nigerian Television Authority, saying some of the Agencies gulp much funds without added value.

According to the Senator representing Abia South, Enyinnaya Abaribe, the budget is “fictitious”, a word he later apologised for using and replaced with “totally imaginary.”

“In what sense will this 2018 budget be predicated on assumptions that have already been destroyed? You are assuming N11tn, yet you are getting less than N1tn. How does that happen? That is why I said, with all due respect to my colleagues, that it is imaginary. The 2018 budget is already dead on arrival”.

Troubles

Problem with the budget started with the presentation of the 2018-2020 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, and Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP, to the Senate. The submission of the MTEF usually precedes the presentation of the budget to the National Assembly.

The Senators, in the MTEF documents passed, raised the oil benchmark for the 2018 Budget from the $45 per barrel, as proposed by the Federal Government, to $47, while daily production was retained at 2.3 Million barrel per day, with exchange rate also retained at N305 to $1.

The $47 per barrel approved by the Senate as oil price benchmark was a dollar higher than the $46 recommended by its Joint Committee on Finance, Appropriations and National Planning that worked on the MTEF document. The parameters are 2.3million barrel oil production per day, N305 to a US dollar exchange rate, 3.5% GDP growth rate, N5.79Trillion projected non-oil revenue, N1.699Trillion for new borrowings, etc.

When the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, appeared before the Senator John Enoh-led Committee on Finance, it queried the Federal Government on its insistence that the 2018 Budget must be passed in January with less than 50% of 2017 Budget implemented.

More accusations

In February, the Senate accused the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of delaying the passage of the 2018 budget.

Speaking during plenary, Sunny Ogbuoji from Ebonyi state, who is the Vice-Chairman of Senate Appropriation Committee, said the committee is having difficulty in harmonising their report on the Budget and said the problem was due to the delay by the MDAs in submitting their budget reports.

“Most of the sub-committees (on the 2018 budget) have huge challenges with the MDAs because majority of them are not coming forward to interface with them. Some of the ministers will tell you they are travelling out of the country and because of that; the MDAs are not fully ready.

“Again, some of the MDAs don’t come back when asked to go and work on what they brought. And that is really delaying the work. That is why we don’t have a comprehensive report up till today.”

Reacting, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu said the Senate should consider taking what has already been presented to President Muhammadu Buhari from those MDAs, “instead of waiting for them forever.”

“So, instead of all of us suffering, let us give them few more days and after that, the relevant committees will adopt what was sent to us as the position of the MDAs, so that we go ahead and pass the budget.

“The budget year is supposed to run from January to December but you can see now, it has been distorted. Sometimes it runs up till March. The 2017 budget is even running up to May 2018.”

In defence, the Ministry of Budget and National Planning has denied claims that (MDAs) are delaying passage of the 2018 Appropriation Bill.

According to the Director-General of the Ministry, Ben Akabueze, the Ministers, and Head of Agencies have made themselves available since the presentation of the budget by the President.

“Given the seriousness the Presidency attaches to getting the 2018 budget passed so it could earnestly focus on achieving the goals set out in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan 2017-20 (ERGP), which formed the basis of the budget, it had directed heads of ministries and extra-ministerial agencies to attend to any requests for meetings/information by the national assembly (NASS) with despatch. To the best of our knowledge, this directive has been complied with.”

Akabueze also added that the Minister of Budget and National Planning has indicated that he is available to liaise with the particular MDA to ensure full cooperation with National Assembly.

Propose date of passage

The House of Representatives had scheduled that the budget would be passed on April 24 after a harmonised committee of the two chambers of the Parliament must have presented the budget on April 19.

However, on the proposed date, the Bill was not passed, neither was it discussed at the plenary as some of the Committees had not received reports from the sub-committees.

Previous Budgets, any better?

In December 2015, President Buhari presented the 2016 Appropriation Bill proposal of 6.07 trillion Naira, tagged “Budget of Change”.

After the many controversies and allegations of padding, it was finally signed into law in May 2016.

The National Assembly passed the budget on March 23, but the President withheld his assent and returned the document, saying lawmakers added new projects and removed critical items proposed by the administration.

The two arms reconciled controversial figures and transmitted a clean copy of the budget to the President with the figure reduced to N6.06 trillion.

The 2017 budget proposal of N7.28 trillion was also presented by the President in December 2016 and raised by the National Assembly to N7.44 trillion.

It was signed by Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo in June 2017 when the President was on a medical trip to London.

The Effect of the Delay

Public expectation is that with the forthcoming elections, Government would want to increase spending on developmental projects to help to create employment and ease economic pressure in some households.

However, with the continued delay in the budget passage and given the bureaucratic process of getting approval for cash release for projects, the Government may not be able to do much in terms of implementing the budget effectively when eventually passed.

The delay could also spell doom for Nigeria as it’s still battling with the full implementation of the 2017 budget.

In March, National Assembly said it had written to the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ibrahim Idris to extend the implementation of the 2017 budget till May 31, with the initial date being March 31.

There are indications that the 2018 budget, owing to the fact that it is coming a year before the General Elections, might disrupt the already fixed timetable by the INEC.

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