Senate passes N4.69trn 2014 budget

Abuja – The Senate on Wednesday passed the 2014 Appropriation Bill of N4.695 trillion.

The approved budget is N53 billion more than the estimate presented by the executive to the National Assembly (NASS).

President Goodluck Jonathan on Dec. 19, 2013, through the Coordinating Minister of the  Economy and Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, presented a budget of N4.642 trillion to NASS.

The Senate approved the budget after considering the reports of the Ahmad Maccido-led  committee on Appropriation  and the Ahmed Makarfi-led committee on Finance.

The budget, tagged, “Budget of Fiscal Consolidation and Inclusive Growth’’, was based on a benchmark of 77 Dollars per barrel of crude and oil production of 2.39 million barrels per day.

The budget is also predicated on a GDP growth rate of 6.75 per cent,  inflation rate of 9.5 per cent and an exchange rate of N160 to one Dollar.

Leading the debate on the budget, Maccido (Sokoto-PDP) decried the appalling state of budget implementation in the country, saying it was a  worrisome recurring decimal for the economy.

“Unspent funds that are rolled over into the economy only make a mockery of development which is a dire necessity across the nation. Government must be seen to be taking steps to improve on this,” he said.

The Senate Appropriation Committee chairman also said that the 2014-2016 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper on which the 2014 budget was based required refining and retooling in procedure and process.

He said the drop in oil production volume as reflected in the budget stop images of the past two years remained a disturbing phenomenon.

“The obvious reason has been traced to the obstruction to oil production as a result of pipeline vandalism and crude theft,” said Maccido.

He maintained that the budget, which was described as one of job creation and inclusive  growth, deserved to urgently rise to the occasion to defend itself in view of the yawning gap between employment created and the army of the unemployed.

The highlights of the approved budget are  statutory transfer, N408.6 billion; debt service, N712 billion; recurrent expenditure, N2.4 trillion, and capital expenditure, N1.1 trillion.

The Senate President, David Mark, who presided over plenary, commended the committees for a job well done, adding that it was a tedious job.

Mark appealed to the executive to follow in the footsteps of the legislature and ensure optimal implementation of the budget.

“Whilst we have done so much to pass it, I hope that the executive will equally work as hard to implement it,” he said.

The highest sectoral allocation in the budget is Education with N424.3 billion, while  Defence follows with an allocation of N349.7 billion.

The 2013 budget was N4.987 trillion,  a sum that is  N308 billion more than the current budget. (NAN)

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Senate passes N4.69trn 2014 budget

Court orders Okonjo-Iweala to disclose budget details of national assembly

The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to immediately make public details of all appropriations and statutory transfers in the 2014 budget in the public interest.

Tax, Federal Government, Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria economy

The order was issued by Justice Abubakar Abdu-Abdu-Kafarati in his judgment  in the suitfiled by the Centre for Social Justice against the minister.

Justice Kafarati asked the minister to release to the group and the 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).

Under the amended Nigerian constitution, the listed offices are considered statutory bodies whose funding are drawn directly from government treasury to foster their independence.

Their budget details had also not been made public since 2011.

According to an online news medium, Premium Times, the Executive Director of Centre for Social Justice, Eze Onyekwere, said the group approached the court to compel the minister to respect the law and release the information pursuant under the Freedom of Information  (FoI) and the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Onyekwere said  following observed acts of impunity and fiscal lawlessness by government, namely the expenditure of several billions of naira in the budget without appropriation, fraud and illegal allocation of revenue under various questionable sub-heads, it became necessary that details of such allocations be revealed to the people, who are the owners of the budget under democracy.

But, he said in spite several requests since 2013, the minister of finance had continuously refused to comply, accusing her of shielding from sanctioning officials in charge of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) where ghost workers have shown up on their payrolls.

“Government has always claimed it has served billions of naira from its efforts to rid ghost workers from the system, but, we have always asked, without any response, for details from each MDA prior to and post-verification, including the numbers and names of the accounting officers, in terms of Permanent Secretary, Head of Personnel and Accounts/Payroll officers,” Onyekwere said.

He said the personnel officers  were those responsible for certifying that the payroll was consist of genuine workers, while the accounts officers prepare the vouchers for the permanent secretary to sign before the authority to incur expenditure, AIE is raised for the final payment.

Citing the case of the Budget Office of the Federation (BOF), where it was found recently that prior to the verification, it had more than 1,000 staff on its payroll every month, only for the figure to crash to only 251 afterwards, he said the problem would be resolved if the minister agreed to expose the perpetrators.

“All we have is a minister of Finance who has refused to bring out the details of these scandalous findings. Yet, we talk about the commitment to fight corruption. Nigerians are entitled to know. We cannot continue to run a system where some people simply come to loot the treasury and they want everyone to clap for them to go on,” Onyekwere said.

He condemned the continued appropriation of funds in the budget under Service Wide Votes, noting that any allocation for any MDA that cannot be included in its approved budget was subject to misappropriation or diversion.

Onyekwere said the provision of about N118 billion as personnel cost under SWV in the budget was suspicious and questionable, as there is no agency or department of government called ‘service-wide votes’ that has workers that should be catered for separately.

Other questionable appropriations under the service-wide vote include about N21 billion to INEC for “elections logistics and support,” apart from about N45 billion already provided for it in the budget, as well as an additional N1.8 billion for pilgrimages.

Apart from the N150 billion appropriation for the National Assembly, he said the provision for another N100 billion under SWV  for constituency projects was fraudulent, as most of the projects neither follow set national vision nor government development agenda.

He frowned at the penchant for government officials to capitalise on the current insecurity in the country to manipulate the system to their selfish ends. (0)

Court orders Okonjo-Iweala to disclose budget details of national assembly

2014 budget: President Jonathan Declares war on Rivers State - APC

By Ehi Ekhator

The Rivers State chapter of All Progressives Congress have expressed shock and disbelief over the discovery by Hon. Peterside concerning the total omission of Rivers State from the list of States that will benefit from Federal Government projects.

Rivers Stae governor, Rotimi Amaechi dissolve Obio/Akpor

This was contained in a statement signed by the SSA Media and Public Affairs to the Interim State Chairman, APC Rivers State, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze.

Eze said “ We have learnt with shock and disbelief, of the zero allocation to Rivers State in the 2014 Budget of the Federal Ministry of Works. What this means is that Rivers State will not receive any Federal Government project this year!

“No one is deceived by the claim of the Minister of Works, Architect Mike Onolememen, while defending the Ministry’s budget on Tuesday before the House of Representatives Committee on Works, that neither the Federal Government nor his ministry was at war with Rivers State. If that is the case, then what could have warranted the omission of Rivers State from the list of States that will enjoy Federal Government presence in terms of capital project execution this year? If this is not war, then what is it?”

The party also expressed disappointment over the action of the President for directing the Ministry of works to omit Rivers State due to the fight between him and the governor of the State, Rotimi Amaechi

He said “This is very sad and condemnable. It is simply unbelievable that President Jonathan could stoop so low as to direct the Ministry of Works to bypass Rivers State just because he has some differences with Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.”

APC commended the effort made by Hon. Dakuku Peterside, the Chairman House of Representative Committee on Petroleum for fighting for the people of Rivers State over the omission of federal projects.

He said “We must, in this regard, commend Hon. Dakuku Peterside, Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), for proving to be a worthy representative of the people of Rivers State by staging a walk-out in protest over the zero allocation to the state during the Works Ministry’s budget defence.”

According to Chief Peterside who represents Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency of Rivers State, “I decided to leave the budget session on discovering from the ministry’s details of on-going projects and 2014 budget proposal that there was no single allocation for projects in Rivers State. The few projects listed in Rivers State got zero allocation. For such criminal neglect, there is definitely more to this omission than meets the eye”.

“A breakdown of details of on-going highway and bridge projects in Rivers State shows that no single allocation was given to such projects as construction of Eleme Junction Flyover and dualization of the access roads to Onne Port in Rivers State; access roads to Eleme Port Harcourt Refinery; construction of Bodo-Bonny Road with a bridge across the Opobo Channel and the rehabilitation of the Abalamabie (Allison Hart) bridge. It will be recalled that Rivers State government awarded and completed Eleme Junction Flyover project in the year 2009.”

The APC statement continued “If we may ask, what joy does President Jonathan derive in continuing this ill-advised war against Rivers State and her people? Under the watch of President Jonathan, Rivers State has lost much revenue as our oil wells were transferred to neighbouring states. They have taken away the oil wells in Soku and given them to his home State, Bayelsa. They have taken the ones between Oyigbo and Etche and given them to Abia. So, our resources continue to dwindle. We used to make between N19bn and N20bn; now we are doing N13bn.

“To continue this senseless war against Rivers State and her people, other areas that the administration of President Jonathan has haunted the Rivers State people include the blatant refusal of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to sign the necessary documents that would have assisted the State to obtain an African Development Bank loan to provide pipe-borne water for the State and save people of the State from dying from diseases related from bad water.

Chief Eze revealed that the Federal Government decision to seize the two surveilance helicopter bought by Governor Amaechi at the rate of N30 billion has increased the oil theft in the state.

He said “Refusal by the Federal Government to authorize the release of the two surveillance helicopters procured by the Rivers State Government at N30B so that the State will be paying demurrage in hard currency annually. These helicopters would have assisted the Federal Government to fight oil theft in the Niger Delta region thereby increasing the dwindling revenue accruable to the Federation Account.

“The refusal of the Federal Government to approve the release of these machines into the country that would have benefitted the entire Nigerians is a demonstration of how not to play politics with the life of Nigerians. This is a demonstration of how this government has alienated itself from those it governs and prefers to have our common patrimony kept in private hands while majority of Nigerians continue to wallow in poverty in the midst of plenty.

“Refusal by the administration of President Jonathan to implement the UNEP report that would have assisted in the cleanup of the ecological devastated Ogoniland of Rivers State.

“With all these sad events it is now very glaring to any sound mind that Rivers State is being treated as a conquered State in a nation in which we are a key player and sadly all these are happening after delivering the highest number of votes that made Dr Goodluck Jonathan the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria during the general elections of 2011.

“The All progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State therefore is deeply saddened by this bizarre turn of events as orchestrated by the Presidency. The State Interim Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibamu Ikanya, is full of sadness; he is dumbfounded that President Jonathan and his administration should declare and sustain a war on Rivers State and her people by ensuring that since he assumed office Rivers State cannot boast of one single Federal Government presence. We as a federating state of this nation pay our taxes and Rivers is among the major states in Nigeria that contribute much to the revenue of this country. Therefore, to be treated as if we are no longer part of this nation because of politics is no longer acceptable to us!

We, therefore, demand an end to this senseless war against an innocent people even as we urge the good people of Rivers State to continue to identify with Gov. Amaechi, who is the face of change in Rivers State. In the words of Dr. Ikanya, “Gov. Amaechi represents change and the people of Rivers, as true progressives, should remain loyal to APC, a vehicle for change both in the State and in the entire Nigeria.” He concluded. (0)

2014 budget: President Jonathan Declares war on Rivers State - APC