President Muhammadu Buhari has returned the controversy-ridden 2016 budget to the National Assembly, pointing out areas of concern in the document and demanding adjustment.
President Muhammadu Buhari departs on a 3-day official visit to Kenya
The spokesperson of the House of Representatives, Abdurazaq Namdas, (APC-Adamawa State) confirmed this to journalists on Thursday.
“I can confirm to you that we are in possession of the letter from the president identifying grey areas,” Mr. Namdas said.
He said the leadership of the House and that of the Senate as well as their respective relevant committees would meet on the development.
He, however, refused to mention the “grey areas” saying they would be made known to Nigerians in “due course”.
The National Assembly passed the budget on March 23 and later transmitted it to Mr. Buhari for assent.
Apparently with the omission of certain projects and addition of others not proposed by the Executive, Mr. Buhari has since withheld his assent.
One of such projects is the Lagos-Calabar rail project counted as a critical infrastrucural focus of the administration.
It was not captured in the original budget but was brought as a supplementary proposal of the Transport Ministry by its Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, and was approved, Chairman Senate Committee on Land Transport, Gbenga Ashafa, said.
However, the Appropriations Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives respectively chaired by Danjuma Goje and Abdulmumin Jibrin, removed the project from the final draft, saying Mr. Amaechi lacked the powers to make budgetary proposal.
Last week, while the Senate said Mr. Buhari should sign the budget and, later, send a supplementary proposal to capture the Lagos-Calabar rail project, the House said it had resolved to receive the budget to capture the project before assent.
ABUJA—The Senate, yesterday, gave what it described as a final warning to the presidency on its dealings with the legislative branch of government, affirming that it would no longer tolerate the presidency blaming the legislature for its failures.
President Buhari
The assertion which was a direct fallout from brickbats over the removal of the Calabar – Lagos rail project from the final budget, came as presidency officials, yesterday, affirmed that the rail project was in the budget but removed by the committees of Appropriation in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The claim which was stoutly rebuffed by the Senate and the House was, however, backed by Chairman of the Senate Committee on Land Transport, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, who said the coastal rail project was in the budget report presented by his committee to the Senator Danjuma Goje-led committee on appropriation.
The Senate, last night, in a sternly worded statement urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the budget bill and not distract Nigerians from what it claimed were acts of blackmail on the part of the executive arm.
The statement singled out Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi for blame, asking him to apologise for seeking to pitch one section of the country against the other and asked him to resign if he cannot show evidence of the inclusion of the projects in the original budget as presented by the president.
Senate’s final warning The statement issued by Senate spokesman, Senator Abdullahi read in part: “While the executive is mandated to prepare and lay before the National Assembly a proposed budget detailing projects to be executed, it should be made clear that the responsibility and power of appropriation lie with the National Assembly. If the presidency expects us to return the budget proposal to them without any adjustments, then some people must be living in a different era and probably have not come to terms with democracy.
“We make bold to say, however, that the said Lagos-Calabar rail project was not included in the budget proposal presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari, and we challenge anyone who has any evidence to the contrary to present such to Nigerians.
“Since the beginning of the 2016 budget process, it is clear that the National Assembly has suffered all manners of falsehood, deliberate distortion of facts, and outright blackmail, deliberately aimed at poisoning the minds of the people against the institution of the National Assembly. We have endured this with equanimity in the overall interest of Nigerians. Even when the original submission was surreptitiously swapped and we ended up having two versions of the budget, which was almost incomprehensible and heavily padded in a manner that betrays lack of coordination and gross incompetence, we refused to play to the gallery and instead helped the Executive to manage the hugely embarrassing situation it has brought upon itself; but enough is enough.
“This latest antics of this particular minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is reckless, uncalled for and dangerously divisive. Apart from setting the people of the southern part of the country against their northern compatriots, it potentially sets the people against their lawmakers from the concerned constituencies and sets the lawmakers against themselves. This manner of reprehensible mischief has no place in a democracy. We hereby demand from Mr. Amaechi a publicly tendered apology if he is not able to show evidence that the Lagos-Calabar rail project was included in the budget. Otherwise, he should resign forthwith.
“Finally, by the provision of Section 81 (4) (a) and (b) of the constitution, the President is allowed to sign the budget and kick-start the implementation of the other areas that constitute over 90 per cent of the budget where there is agreement between both arms, even as we engage ourselves to resolve the contentious areas, if there were any. We, therefore, maintain that even these contrived discrepancies are not sufficient excuse not to sign the budget into law.
“We, therefore, urge President Buhari to sign the 2016 budget without any further delay. For every additional day that the president withholds his assent from the bill, the hardship in the land, which is already becoming intolerable for the masses of our people gets even more complicated. Certainly, as primary representatives of the people, we shall not vacate our responsibility and watch the people continue to suffer unduly.”
Senate
The statement followed an earlier press conference where the Senate spokesman also claimed ignorance of the presence of the projects in the budget presented by the president.
House spokesman, Namdas at a press conference also, yesterday, accused Amaechi of bringing the Calabar – Lagos rail project to the National Assembly through the back door.
According to him, the report that the project was removed, and its budget appropriated for the completion of the Lagos-Kano rail project was misleading and intended to set the Southern and Northern parts of the country against each other.
Meanwhile, fresh insights into how political infighting in the All Progressives Congress, APC, and ego by senior officials of the National Assembly led to the extraction of the Lagos – Calabar rail project and other key infrastructure projects of the administration from budget 2016 have been unveiled.
At the centre of the controversy, yesterday, were the chairmen of Senate and House of Representatives committees on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje and Abdulmumin Jibrin.
The reports of the two committees on Land Transport, Vanguard learned, contained proposals for the Lagos – Calabar and Kaduna – Idu rail projects which were both removed by the committees of appropriation in both chambers.
Vanguard is in possession of a text message purportedly sent to committee chairmen in the House of Representatives by Jibrin, asking them to defend whatever controversy could arise from the action in the media.
Presidency officials were peeved by the fact that the legislature had seemingly removed the carpet from under President Muhammadu Buhari’s feet, given the fact that the action was done just as he was about leaving for China to negotiate foreign assistance necessary to fast-track the projects.
Senate spokesman, Abdullahi Sabi and his House of Reps counterpart, Abdulrazak Namdas, yesterday, rebuffed assertions that the Calabar – Lagos rail project was removed, saying in separate fora to journalists that the item was not in the initial proposal submitted by the president.
They also alleged that the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi only brought it to the attention of the legislators after the president’s presentation.
Lagos-Calabar rail project in budget — Ashafa Meanwhile, the Senate Committee Chairman on Land Transportation, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, maintained that the railway project was accommodated in the budget but was surprised that it was removed. Senator Ashafa said: “I confirm that the Lagos to Calabar rail line was not in the original document that was presented to the National Assembly by the Executive.
However, subsequently at the budget defence session before the Senate Committee on Land Transport, the Minister for Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, did inform the committee of the omission of the Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation project and indeed sent a supplementary copy of the ministry’s budget to the committee which contained the said project.
The Minister noted that the amount needed for the counterpart funding for both the Lagos to Kano and Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation projects was N120 billion, being N60 billion per project.
“While the committee did not completely agree with all the changes made in the subsequent document, being fully aware of the critical importance of the rail sector to the development of our dear country, distinguished members of the Senate Committee on Land transport keyed into the laudable (Lagos to Calabar, rail modernisation) project and found ways of appropriating funds for the project without exceeding the envelope provided for the ministry, he said.
Ashafa continued: “In so doing, the committee observed that the Lagos to Kano rail rehabilitation project had been allocated the sum of N52 billion as against the sum of N60 billion which the Hon. Minister requested as counterpart funding while no allocation whatsoever was made for the Lagos to Calabar rail line.
“Hence, the sum of N54 billion that was discovered by the Senate Committee on Land Transport to be floating in the budget of the Ministry of Transportation as presented by the Executive was injected into augmenting the funds needed for counterpart funding of both projects (Lagos to Kano and Lagos to Calabar Rail modernisation), as at the time the committee defended its report before the senate committee on Appropriation.
“The Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation project was, therefore, included in the Senate Committee on Land Transport’s recommendation to the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
“With regard to the Idu to Kaduna rail completion, the Senate Committee on Land Transport did not interfere with what was provided for in the budget as sent by the executive, being approximately N18 billion hence I am equally surprised to read on the pages of the newspapers that the amount allocated to the said project was reduced by N8 billion.
“While I would have preferred to wait till Tuesday, April 12, 2016 (today) when the National Assembly reconvenes in order to have the benefit of viewing the details of the budget that was conveyed to the executive as passed, I am compelled to place the facts in proper perspective as it relates to the activities of the Senate Committee on Land Transport.
“Without prejudice to the considerations and powers of the Senate Committee on Appropriations with regard to the appropriations process, the foregoing is the true reflection of what transpired at the committee level with respect to the Land Transport sector of the Ministry of Transport,”Ashafa said.
Vanguard learned, yesterday, that besides geopolitical interests, the removal of the Lagos – Calabar rail project from Budget 2016 was done partly to spite Amaechi supposedly for distancing himself from his former colleagues in the Senate, notably senators Bukola Saraki and Danjuma Goje.
“Amaechi was told by associates in the Senate that Goje was not happy with him and that he had teamed up with the Buhari people against his former colleagues in the Governors’ Forum,” a Presidency official conversant with the issue said. The source further revealed that on account of the information, Amaechi had to visit Goje to solicit his help on the passage of the budget proposals of the Ministry of Transportation.
Amaechi and his key aides were part of the president’s delegation to China and efforts to reach his media assistant; Mr. Dave Iyofor were unsuccessful.
A top presidency official stated that the Calabar-Lagos railway project alongside the Lagos – Kano rail project was included in the draft budget of the Ministry submitted to the Budget Office.
The official challenged the House of Representatives and the Senate to produce the report of their respective submissions to the NASS if they insist that the project was not included in the budget.
The officer said: “When the budget was collated by the Budget Office, and copies sent back to the respective ministries for perusal, it was noticed that the Coastal Rail Project was erroneously omitted at the compilation stage, although the total amount did not change.
“The Transportation Ministry immediately, through a memo, drew the attention of the Budget and National Planning Ministry to the omission and it was corrected in the amended version which the Minister took to the National Assembly and defended,” he said.
Another presidency official who spoke to Vanguard also confirmed that the issue over the erroneous submission made was trashed out between the president and the National Assembly leadership. The National Assembly leadership, the source said, asked the ministers to proceed to the committee levels to harmonise the differences between the initial submission and the corrected version, an issue that stoked the reports of a fake budget allegedly attributed to Senator Enang.
Vanguard learned that although members of the Appropriation Committee of the House of Representatives raised some issues about an assumed duplication of the project because both the Lagos – Kano and Calabar – Lagos had the same figure of N60bn each in the allocation, Amaechi explained that there were two different projects that would be funded through the assistance of the Chinese government.
According to the ministry, the sum of N80bn was also provided in the same amended version for all other rail projects indicated.
The source said Amaechi even met with the Chairman of the Appropriation Committee in the Senate, Senator Danjuma Goje, who was his colleague as state governor, on the two strategic rail projects; and also with the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, and the projects were clearly explained after which they were appropriately reflected in the Senate Transportation Committee report to the Appropriation Committee.
“That may be reason the Senate Committee Chairman on Appropriation has been quiet since the controversy started because he cannot claim ignorance of the issue.” The source challenged the Senate to produce the Transportation Committee report that was submitted.
The source also drew attention to the fact that the House of Representatives Appropriation Committee Chairman, Jibrin admitted that the Transport Ministry budget overshot by N54bn and queried if they were sincere, why the Ministry’s attention was never drawn to it during the several interactions they had with the National Assembly committees; but decided to distribute the funds to projects which were either not included anywhere in the budget nor provided for elsewhere.
He also queried why the allocation for Kano Airport jumped from N60bn to the N92bn reflected in the details sent to the President.
“Since Jibrin was referring people to the original budget, let him also show the people where either N60bn or N92bn was reflected in the original budget for the Lagos–Kano rail project?” he insisted.
It was also noted that provisions were made elsewhere in the budget for the rehabilitation of major airports in the country and would not know why the legislators decided to take the money apparently meant for the coastal rail project to allocate for security and football fields, wondering what connection such projects had with the ministry of transportation.
Read more at: http:Meanwhile, a text message allegedly sent out by Jibrin to select committee chairmen to defend the extraction of the Calabar–Lagos rail project was, yesterday, in circulation.
The text read in part: “To all Hon Chairmen and Dep Chairmen of Standing Committees: As you are aware, we have transmitted details of budget 2016. After consultation with the leadership of both Chambers, the reports of all standing Committees were sustained in the details. Though all items submitted by Committees were retained, you will see additional inputs that were necessary to be accommodated via little cuts. You are therefore enjoined to be prepared to justify reports both in media and elsewhere; in case, the executive arm disagrees. We are already justifying your reports, but you must join in doing so, especially in the media…”
…..Pleads with NASS Not to Play Politics with the Budget and to Restore Removed Portions
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has thrown its weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to return the 2016 Budget to the National Assembly and not to assent to it until the lawmakers restore the removed portions.
APC data Centre
Rivers APC in a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, argued that the lawmakers erred in removing what the party described as critical aspects of the 2016 Appropriation Bill, saying that what NASS submitted to the Presidency on Thursday was unacceptable.
The party said: “We are shocked to read in the papers about the removal of some of the critical portions of the 2016 Budget by the National Assembly. These include the Coastal Railway project being jointly funded by Nigeria and China, for which a counterpart funding of N60bn was provided but which was completely removed by the National Assembly. While the Lagos – Kano provision was left untouched, the Calabar – Lagos line was inexplicably removed by the lawmakers. Also, the amount proposed for the completion of the Idu – Kaduna rail project which has reached an advanced stage was reduced by N8.7bn, a development which will make it difficult for the project to be completed. In addition, while the Executive had provided for the completion of all major road projects across the country, the National Assembly reduced the amounts provided and instead included new roads which studies have not even been conducted.
“As if that is not enough, in the health sector, proposals made for the purchase of essential drugs for major health campaigns like Polio and AIDs for which the store is fast depleting were removed and the amounts allocated to provision of ambulance, which the ministry did not ask for. Besides, certain provisions made in the areas of Agriculture and Water Resources to further the Federal Government’s diversification project where either removed or reduced while the funds were moved to provision of rural health facilities and boreholes, for which provisions have been made elsewhere.”
Continuing, Rivers APC said in the statement issued Monday in Port Harcourt: “Some hawks within NASS are saying that the missing portions are not contained in the budget in the first instance but we are aware that in the amended budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari last January after the dust had settled over the ‘missing budget’, the sum of N80 billion was included for the Calabar – Lagos rail project in the amended budget by the executive and submitted to NASS. After the submission, the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, also followed up by presenting a document in defence of the Calabar – Lagos railway project to the National Assembly in order to ensure that it was passed as one of the subheads for the budget of his ministry. However, to our chagrin, this important aspect of the budget was removed for reasons we do not know.
“We wish to emphasise that this unholy act by NASS is unacceptable because these are some of the key projects with which the present administration can positively impact on the country’s economy and meaningfully touch the lives of the generality of Nigerians.
“By rejecting the doctored budget by NASS, President Buhari has once more proved that he is not just an ordinary leader but a patriotic, astute, caring leader and a true statesman who means well for the emancipation and greatness of this nation. We, therefore, appeal to our distinguished lawmakers not to fall into the hands of parochial and enemies of our nation by doing the needful to avoid being tagged as working against the common interest of the people of Nigeria. We plead very sincerely with our lawmakers not to play politics with this budget as it will go a long way in restoring hope and faith to our people.
“Meanwhile, we urge Nigerians to exercise patience and continue to have faith in the APC led Federal Government as it will surely bring smiles to the faces of the good people of this nation.”
Rivers APC said it understood that President Buhari had wished to sign the budget before embarking on his official trip to China earlier on Sunday. “We, therefore, appeal to our distinguished lawmakers to correct the errors in the budget and resend to the Presidency in good enough time for President Buhari to sign shortly after he returns from China,” the party said.
There were indications on Sunday that the National Assembly’s peace moves with the executive over the 2016 budget crisis had flopped.
General Buhari
The PUNCH learnt that as part of the peace moves, the National Assembly had, on Saturday, reached out to the executive and asked President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the document and then send a supplementary budget to the lawmakers.
It was gathered that the President did not accept the suggestion against the backdrop that the distortions in the budget discovered in the document transmitted by the National Assembly were too many.
A minister, who confided in The PUNCH, said both arms of government had been discussing the issue, but the President had been advised by members of his cabinet not to sign the appropriation bill.
“The National Assembly has initiated some peace moves. The lawmakers have suggested that the budget should be signed by the President before he will send a supplementary budget to cover the omissions, but he had turned down the proposal,” a competent source told one of our correspondents on Sunday.
Also, a competent Presidency source told The PUNCH on condition of anonymity on Sunday that with the level of distortions noticed in the document returned to the President, there was no way he could have been advised to append his signature to the budget.
The source stated, “I can confirm to you that the President has been advised not to sign the budget as it is. The initial plan was for him to sign it before going to China and thereafter present a supplementary budget to the National Assembly.
“But as it is, with the level of distortions noticed, the President has been advised not to sign it at all.”
It was gathered that Buhari on Sunday afternoon met behind closed doors with Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, in continuation of his consultation on the budget.
The meeting was held inside the President’s official residence in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting was held shortly before Buhari left Abuja for China on a one-week official visit.
It was learnt that the meeting was a follow-up to an earlier one held by the President with the leadership of the National Assembly.
Presidential spokesmen, Mr. Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, were not available for comments on Sunday as they were on the President’s entourage to China.
Investigations by our correspondents at the National Assembly showed that the majority of the 109 senators and the 360 members of the House of Representatives had no knowledge of the details of the 2016 budget before they passed the document on March 23.
It was learnt on Sunday that the lawmakers placed too much confidence on the judgment of the Joint National Assembly Committee on Appropriation, chaired by Senator Danjuma Goje and Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, to work out the details that they reportedly paid less attention to the work of the committee.
One senior legislative official, who followed the budget through, said, “Let the truth be told; the budget was passed without any information on the breakdown.
“We all trusted the committee that due to the pressure to pass the budget, the members should work out the details while we passed the highlights.
“The news of inserting projects or removing some came as a surprise to many us.”
It was learnt that in the case of the House of Representatives in particular, only the Chairman, Jibrin, and a few members of the Committee on Appropriation sat to work on the details of the budget without the knowledge of other members.
“Although members of the committee were asked to stay behind during the Easter break for the purpose of working on the details, they were not called to meetings to work on the details.
“What we heard was that some consultants were hired by the chairman to work on the details, while he pleaded with members for understanding because of the exigencies of time,” another legislative official disclosed to The PUNCH.
As the development unfolded, opposition party lawmakers, in a surprise move, backed Buhari’s objections to the budget, saying the President was right.
Speaking on their behalf, the Minority Leader of the House and member of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Leo Ogor, told The PUNCH that Buhari was free to reject the budget if it did not fall in line with his economic agenda.
Citing the alleged removal of the Lagos-Calabar rail line project from the budget, Ogor noted that the President must have made provision for it because he believed it would be a major boost to his economic agenda.
Ogor stated that the Committees on Transport and all other committees supervising agencies whose projects were removed would have to explain whether the removal was done with their knowledge.
However, Jibrin took to his Twitter handle to respond to allegations levelled against the National Assembly and specifically the Committee on Appropriation.
In a series of tweets, he addressed some of the issues one after another.
In the tweets, he said, “The Lagos-Calabar rail (line project) was never included. How could NASS have removed what was not there? But the nation is being misled.
“This is unfortunate as it is quite clear to all and sundry that #Budget2016 and all its headaches and controversies didn’t emanate from NASS.
“We will come up with a comprehensive position especially with respect to our observation of the budget and what we did to make it better.”
He added, “What NASS did with the N54bn? We added N39.7bn to the Lagos-Kano Rail project. This will help complete the project once and for all.
“That N50bn be set aside as special bursary for students of tertiary institutions.”
When contacted, the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, on Sunday, said he was not aware of any meeting between the leadership of the National Assembly and the Presidency over the 2016 budget.
Ndume, who spoke in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja, said, “Our concern as Nigerians should be how to collectively move the nation forward instead of writing on speculations that could heat up the polity.”
Attempts to get the Director, Information, Ministry of Budget and Planning, Mr Charles Dafe, to comment on steps being taken to resolve the grey areas in the budget were not successful.
The Senate on Sunday also denied allegations of padding levelled against the appropriation committees of the National Assembly.
Senate spokesman, Senator Abdullahi Sabi, said in Abuja that the Constitution of Nigeria did not make the legislature a rubber stamp.
He said, “I can say authoritatively that we did not pad the budget at all. I reject that in its entirety. We appropriated in line with what we believe the issues are and we did so in consultation with the Ministries, Departments and Agencies.”
He added that the National Assembly, in reality, helped the executive to pass a badly written budget, saying having done its job within the law, the lawmakers expected the executive to follow the constitutional process.
The crisis between President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly over the 2016 budget has worsened as the executive has discovered fresh padding of the fiscal document by the lawmakers.
General Buhari
Sunday PUNCH reliably learnt on Saturday that only one minister did not have problems with the budget when it was discussed at the emergency Federal Executive meeting presided over by the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on Friday.
It was learnt that the lawmakers reduced amounts allocated to some major projects and inserted what was not originally included in the budget by the executive.
A top civil servant, who confided in Sunday PUNCH said, “Only one minister did not have any problem with the budget details the National Assembly submitted to the President.
“There are instances, where they completely removed projects and padded the budget by inserting theirs. The lawmakers should know that the budget is the document of the executive and it takes responsibility for it.”
It was learnt that at the FEC meeting that many key aspects of the budget on government’s infrastructural programmes were removed.
One of such, it was gathered, was the coastal railway project. Findings showed that Calabar-Lagos rail project was removed from the budget by the lawmakers.
The senior civil servant, who confided in Sunday PUNCH, said, “The coastal railway project is one of the reasons the President is in China. N60bn counterpart funding has been provided.
“We are working on two major rail arteries. The Lagos-Kano line and the Calabar – Lagos line. While the Lagos-Kano provision was left intact by the National Assembly, the Calabar – Lagos line was removed.”
The projects will be jointly financed by the Federal Government and China.
It was learnt that the FEC meeting noticed that the amount proposed for the completion of the Idu-Kaduna rail project, was also reduced by N8.7bn.
It was gathered that the executive observed that the reduction would make the completion of the project difficult.
The civil servant stated, “Another major area noticed was the completion of on-going road projects. While the executive in the budget provided for the completion of all major road projects, the National Assembly reduced the amounts budgeted for them and instead, inserted new road projects which studies have not even been conducted.
“The amounts allocated by the National Assembly for the projects can neither complete the ongoing projects nor the new ones. At the end of 2016, no significant progress would have been made.
“Another major flaw in the budget is in the health sector. Proposals made for the purchase of essential drugs for major health issues such as Polio and AIDs were removed by the National Assembly.”
The FEC also observed that certain provisions made for agriculture and water resources as part of the Federal Government’s diversification projects were either removed or reduced.
“The funds were moved to provision of rural health facilities and boreholes, for which provisions have been made elsewhere,” the top civil servants said.
It was gathered that the lawmakers made such provisions in their constituencies.
Investigations showed that the President had reached out to the leadership of the National Assembly as part of efforts to resolve areas of disagreement.
It was learnt that Buhari was determined to ensure that the budget was signed as soon as he returned from China and once the grey areas were resolved.
It will be recalled that the National Assembly had a few months ago detected errors in the budget. The lawmakers had also alleged that the budget was padded.
Asked to speak on the recent development, the House of Representatives advised the executive to appreciate the power of the legislature to appropriate funds as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution.
The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, who gave the House’ position, explained further: “The job of the executive is to initiate projects and spending heads, but it is the responsibility of the National Assembly to appropriate funds as necessary.”
On padding, Namdas said that it was actually the fault of the executive, which brought a budget that was already full of discrepancies to the National Assembly on December 22, 2015.
“Padding was an issue that the executive itself admitted ever before the National Assembly started a thorough re-working of the budget to clean it up,” he said.
The senate spokesperson, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, neither picked calls to his mobile telephone nor responded to the text message sent to him on the issue.
Also the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, had yet to respond to a text message sent to him after repeated calls made to his mobile line did not connect.
When contacted, the Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enag said, “What the Minister of Information said after the FEC meeting is the exact position of government on the issue. I have nothing more to add.”
The naira is expected to weaken more on the parallel market but flat on the official interbank market next week as businesses await the signing of the 2016 budget by President Mohammadu Buhari.
N100 note
The local currency closed at 320 against the dollar on the parallel market on Thursday, while it traded at 197 to the greenback on the interbank market.
“There is presently a lull in the forex market because of the non-release of the 2016 budget by the government, but we see transactions picking up as soon as the government reveals its economic direction through the budget next week,” one currency trader told Reuters.
Analyst and the Chief Executive Officer, Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, said although investors and other stakeholders were waiting for Buhari’s final assent to the budget, weak consumer confidence would continue to keep the naira at the current level in the near future.
Meanwhile, the Kenyan, Ghanaian and Zambian currencies are expected to gain ground next week with the cedi recording its first year-to-date gain in recent years after weeks of consistent rally on renewed investor confidence underpinned by improved foreign exchange inflows, according to analysts.
Commercial banks quoted the cedi at 3.8290 to the dollar on Thursday, compared to 3.8350 last week, Reuters reported.
The Ghanaian government had on Monday appointed Abdul-Nashiru Issahaku as the governor of the central bank, promoting him from the deputy position to replace Henry Kofi Wampah, who retired at the end of March, four months earlier than expected.
The Kenya’s shilling is seen firming after weakening on news that the central bank said it had placed Chase Bank under receivership for 12 months to protect depositors, creditors and the public.
“We expect the shilling to regain its lost ground in the coming days as the Chase Bank issue dies out,” a senior trader at one commercial bank said.
The kwacha is expected to remain firm versus the dollar next week due to increased dollar supply from investors attracted to high-yielding government bonds.
On Thursday, commercial banks quoted the currency of Africa’s second-biggest copper producer at 10.2829 per dollar, up from a close of 11.1000 a week ago.
“Stakeholders seek to take advantage of the high investment rates,” the local branch of South Africa’s First National Bank said, predicting a break of the 10.000 psychological level.
ABUJA—BARING any last minutes change, a detailed clean copy of the 2016 budget will be ready today for onward transmission to the President for assent.
Tambuwal and the others
Recall that the Presidency, last week, said the passed budget would not be assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari because it did not contain the details.
But reacting, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumuni Jibrin, said some previous administrations in the country, especially former President Olusagun Obasanjo, during his time signed the budget without the details which were made available two weeks latter.
However, a member of the Appropriation Committee, Joseph Edionwele, representing Esan Centra/Esan West/Igueben Federal Constituency of Edo State, told Vanguard that there was no cause for alarm as the joint committee would meet today to produce the clean copy for onward transmission to the President.
Edionwele said necessary reconciliations had been concluded and that the final copy with the details would be ready at today’s meeting.
Also speaking to Vanguard on why the details of the budget were not submitted to the Presidency, member representing Akoko Edo Federal Constituency of Edo State in the House of Representatives, Peter Akpatason, said the National Assembly had to submit the passed 2016 budget to the Presidency without the details to satisfy the curiosity of Nigerians.
Akpatason, a former National President of Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, said there was nothing wrong in submitting the passed budget to the Presidency without the details.
He said: “The ideal thing is to send in the details when they are available, but in the circumstance that we find ourselves, if the details are not immediately available, I think it is proper that the President be given the information that he has already. I don’t think there is anything unusual.”
“Again, what is going on just now is also not completely new that the highlights have been forwarded to the President and you take your time to cross the ‘t’s and dot the ‘i’s to make sure that the kind of stories that happened at the beginning will not happen in this case.
“I think that is what is going on, Nigerians are anxious, so it is understandable why people are getting so curious about it. The budget proposal was not submitted early enough in the first place and then because of the challenges that followed at the beginning, the passage equally took much longer time.
Why NASS sent highlights of the budget
On why the National Assembly decided to send the highlights of the budget to the Presidency for assent without the details, the lawmaker, who is of the All Progressives Congress, APC, said it was so
“so that we can satisfy the curiosity of Nigerian people.” However, there was an indication, yesterday, that the Presidency and the National Assembly might clashed again, if President Buhari insisted that the details in the passed budget would have allocations to various ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, as was proposed in the budget document.
The signal to this emanates from the comments by the House Committee Chairman on Appropriation who had maintained that it was the duty of the executive to propose, while the legislature appropriates.
He also said the National Assembly would not abdicate its constitutional role to any other arm of government, adding that globally, there was no way the budget proposal prepared by the executive would remain the same as when it was sent to the parliament for appropriations.
The delay in signing of the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law is said to be taking its toll on government activities as many of the agencies are finding it difficult to implement their programmes.
President Buhari
Saturday PUNCH gathered that capital projects, whose contractors would have gone back to sites, remained abandoned as the first quarter of the year ended on Thursday.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on Thursday said that he would carefully study the budget passed by the National Assembly before signing it.
According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, Buhari had, in Washington DC, ruled out early signing of the budget.
“I have to look at the bill that has been passed by the National Assembly, ministry by ministry, to be sure that what has been brought back for me to sign is in line with our original submission,” Buhari had said.
But investigations by our correspondents on Friday revealed that some items that would have facilitated effective activities of the agencies had not been attended to because of the delayed budget.
It was learnt that many of the ministries were having challenges getting supplies from their contractors.
MDAs ration stationery, other office items
For instance, at the ministry of finance, it was learnt that the supplies of stationery had been limited owing to what officials described “as a wait and see attitude of the suppliers.”
The same situation is also being experienced in the ministry of trade and investment and that of budget and national planning.
Road projects remained abandoned
A top government official in one of the ministries told one of our correspondents that as a result of the budget delay, many capital projects could not be funded.
According to him, many contractors handling the projects had thought that they would go back to sites within the first quarter of this year following meetings they held with the government.
He, however, said that the projects, including the Kano- Maiduguri Road, which have budgetary allocations of N16bn; Abuja-Lokoja Road (N10bn), and Apapa-Oshodi Road (N5bn), remained abandoned.
Other affected projects are the Sokoto-Kontagora Road project where the sum of N4bn had been allocated in the budget; Ilorin-Jebba road project N6bn; Itu-Ikot-Ekpene road project N6bn.
Many of the projects were carried over from the 2015 financial year.
The official said currently, only critical recurrent expenditure items that had to do with travel expenses of ministers were being met.
The source said, “You will recall that this year’s budget has sparked a lot of controversies and as such nobody is certain of what will be the outcome in terms of the expenditure items that have been proposed by each MDA.
“For instance, in our ministry, majority of expenses have been put on hold owing to the fact that the budget is not ready.
“As we speak, stationery has not been supplied in the store because we don’t know how much would be approved for that purpose.
“Also, some of the workers who did overtime have not been paid their allowance, even the running of the power generating set is being threatened because suppliers have started demanding payments.
“So everything is practically on a standstill waiting for the budget.”
We’ve not received a dime from govt –Construction firms
Construction firms said they had yet to receive a dime from the N350bn which Buhari’s administration promised that it would use to revive the economy, particularly in settling part of the over N600bn debt owed contractors across the country.
In March, the Federal Government announced that it would inject N350bn into the economy in order to revive the country’s economic activities, and stressed that the fund would be used to largely pay the debts owed contractors in Nigeria.
But when contacted on Friday, contractors under their umbrella body – Federation of Construction Industry, told one of our correspondents that they had yet to receive a dime from the administration, despite the fact that the government owed them over N600bn.
Speaking on behalf of contractors and construction firms, the President, FOCI, Mr. Solomon Ogunbusola, stated that he was not aware of any payment to any contractor or construction company with respect to the debt owed them.
Asked if contractors have been receiving payments from the N350bn fund, Ogunbusola said, “I am not aware. Maybe the government wants to borrow or it is planning something else. You know me very well that if I am aware I will tell you that I’m aware.
“We spoke and made it public that the debt to contractors was over N600bn and I told you clearly about it. After that, the government said we should go and bring our documentation and we did, but since that time we have not heard anything.”
When probed further on why contractors had yet to mobilise to construction sites across the country, he replied, “If the money has been paid, then you don’t need to call us before we will mobilise the equipment the next morning.
“You can call the ministry of finance and clarify if the ministry has given money to the construction industry. If it says yes, please ask the ministry the amount.”
Officials from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing corroborated the statements of the FOCI president, as they told one of our correspondents that the Federal Government had yet to disburse the funds to construction firms.
“The funds have not been given out and I think it is because the government is taking time in making sure that the right persons or companies are captured when such payments commence,” an official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said.
Attempts to get comments from the Ministry of Budget and National Planning on what is being done to implement the budget as a result of the delays were not successful.
The spokesperson for the Minister of Planning, Mr. James Akpandem, could not be reached for comments as calls sent to his phone did not connect.
But the spokesperson for the Minister of Finance, Mr. Festus Akanbi, when contacted on the phone on the impact the delayed budget was having on the economy, declined comment.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, had last week assured that the Federal Government, as a sign of its commitment to stimulate the economy, would pump N350bn into the system in form of capital spending.
Explaining that the Federal Government would use 2016 budget to fast-track economic diversification, the minister said efforts had been put in place to ensure that the spending on the capital projects trickled down to all Nigerians.
The National Assembly had while passing the 2016 Appropriation Bill reduced the budget size from the initial N6.077trn presented to the parliament by the President on December 23, 2015, to N6.060trn, a difference of N17bn.
The federal lawmakers approved the sum of N1.587trn as the capital expenditure portion of the budget and recurrent expenditure of N2.646.3trn.
Nigeria has been experiencing delay in its budget process since the return to democratic rule in 1999 owing to power tussle between the executive and the legislature.
For instance, the 2011 budget was passed on March 25, 2011, while that of 2012 was passed on March 14 of that same year.
For the 2013 budget, it was passed by the lawmakers on December 20, 2012 and signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan in February 2013 while the 2014 and 2015 budgets were also signed by him in the month of May.
Ordinarily, the general rule is that no amount of public fund may be spent without the approval of the National Assembly. However, an exemption to this rule is granted in Section 82 of the 1999 constitution.
The section empowers the President to incur interim expenses from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to carry on the administration of government of the federation for not more than six months or until the coming into operation of the Appropriation Act, whichever is earlier.
Specifically, the section reads, “If the Appropriation Bill in respect of any financial year has not been passed into law by the beginning of the financial year, the President may authorise the withdrawal of moneys from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation for the purpose of meeting expenditure necessary to carry on the services of the Government of the Federation for a period not exceeding six months until the coming into operation of the Appropriate Act, whichever is the earlier:
“Provided that the withdrawal in respect of any such period shall not exceed the amount authorised to be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation under the provisions of the Appropriation Act passed by the National Assembly for the corresponding period in the immediately preceding financial year, being an amount proportionate to the total amount so authorised for the immediately preceding financial year.”
The implication of this provision is that the amount that would be spent in the current year may not exceed the amount approved in the preceding budget.
The constitution however, did not clarify whether the interim expenditure is restricted to recurrent expenditure or cover both recurrent and capital expenditure.
A cross-section of Nigerians on Friday flayed President Muhammadu Buhari over the delay in signing the 2016 budget.
President Buhari
They said it was embarrassing that the President could still be delaying the signing of the budget even after the first quarter of the year was over.
According to them, the delay signifies the President’s inefficiency and lack of preparation for serious governance.
A chieftain of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo; the Registrar of the Chartered Institute of Finance and Control, Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Eohoi; the Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice, Mr. Eze Onyekwere and the spokesperson for the Ijaw National Congress, Mr. Victor Borubo, expressed concern that the delay could have negative impacts on the economy.
The President had on Thursday in the United States ruled out the possibility of early signing of the 2016 Appropriation Bill passed by the National Assembly last week.
He had said that before he would sign the budget, he would do a ministry-by-ministry review of the document to ensure that what was returned to him was the same with what his administration submitted to the National Assembly for passage.
But the eminent Nigerians said the President’s action could worsen the already decay infrastructure in the country.
Adebanjo said the delay meant that the All Progressives Congress-led government was clueless and was not sure of what to do with governance.
He said, “I have said it before that the APC has no programme. All the party wanted was that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan should go. But since the APC has assumed power, what has it done? It is not in my interest for Buhari to fail, but I want the country to move forward.”
Eohoi said since many investment decisions were tied to the budget, any delay in signing the document might affect investments inflows.
He said, “It is obvious that we are going to have a delay in the implementation of the 2016 budget.
“A lot of plans are dependent on capital releases and if capital budget does not start early, it will affect businesses because most people look at the budget to make informed decisions and those are the effects it will have.”
Onyekwere said, “From the provisions of our laws, the harmonised 2016 Federal Appropriation Bill should have been signed by the President on or before the clock strikes 11.59pm on December 31, 2015.
“This is to pave way for the full commencement of the financial year on January 1, 2016 in accordance with the Financial Year Act.
“But this was not the case as we have lost three months and no one is sure whether the President will not have some misgivings to delay the signing and thereby return the Bill to the National Assembly for further review.
“Nigerians expect the President to immediately sign the bill and move the executive to expeditiously start the implementation of the budget.” Borubo questioned the reason given by Buhari for delaying the budget signing.
He said, “The delay shows that the issue of padding is not yet over. It also shows that there is absence of transparency in the whole system.
“Secondly, the President himself complained that the budget was padded but up till now, no one in the budget office has been arrested and prosecuted. That tells me that the war against graft is simply a lip service. It is when you prosecute such people that other people can be deterred from doing it again.”
The Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Muda Yusuf, said the budget delay would have negative effects on the country’s infrastructural development plan among other implications.
He said, “It has implications for the economy. First, the interventions we expect from the Federal Government with regards to infrastructural investment may be further delayed. Infrastructural deficiency is one of biggest problems facing the economy and it is adversely affecting productivity in the economy. So, a further delay will affect government intervention on investment in infrastructure. If you look at the budget, you will see it is in favour of infrastructure.”
A member of the Peoples Democratic Party Board of Trustees, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, said it was too bad that the national budget had yet to be signed for prompt implementation to address the suffering of the citizens.
Babatope said the delay might be as a result of the alleged dispute between the Presidency and the National Assembly.
He, however, asked the President to quickly go through the document and sign it for implementation.
“Nigerians are suffering. Honestly speaking, the President’s aides should bring the suffering of Nigerians to his knowledge so that he can do something to minimise it.”
The National Coordinator, Rights Monitoring Group, Mr. Femi Aduwo, said the delay in signing the document showed that Buhari’s ministers did not contribute anything to how the “budget of change” was made.
“Delaying the signing of the budget shows that Buhari does not trust the National Assembly whose majority members are members of the President’s party,” Aduwo said, adding, “Before he appointed his ministers, the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, said the administration would propose a budget of N7tr, in other words, the ministers did not contribute anything to how the budget was made.”
A rights activist, Mr. Ebun Adegboruwa, said the delay implied that the President did not prepare for serious governance.
According to him, the delay is a deliberate ploy by the President to hold Nigerians to ransom.
Adegboruwa added that the emergence of Buhari as the President was like inviting trouble to the country.
He said, “When Buhari’s government was inaugurated almost a year ago, power generation was about 5,000 megawatts, but it had drastically reduced now and nearly all parts of the country are in one crisis or the other. Militancy is back in the Niger Delta; it is a sad story that it appears that we are now in a war situation than we were before the current government took over power.
“It means Buhari is inefficient; his government is wallowing in confusion and has no direction.
“If the President insists that there is problem with the budget, it shows that the President has failed because his party is the one in charge. The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, is a staunch member of the APC and the Speaker, the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, is also a staunch member of the ruling party. So, if the President is still delaying the signing of the budget, it means the ruling party has failed; it means the ruling party is directionless.”
But an economist, Henry Boyo, backed the President’s action. He said previous budgets that were hurriedly signed did not impact the citizens in any form.
He said, “It will be self serving for anyone to call on the President to actualise a defective budget. In any case, if it is passed now, is there any guarantee that it would benefit the people?
Another economist, Bismark Rewane, claimed that it would be wrong for the President to hurriedly sign a budget that could later be found to be defective.
He said, “The President needs to be sure of what he is signing rather than signing it in a hurry and making mistakes.”
The Chief Executive Officer, Economic Associates, Dr. Ayo Teriba, asked Nigerians if it would be proper for the President to sign the budget without reading the document.
“Is that what Nigerians want,” Teriba asked, urging the citizens to shun the idea of making issue out of non-issue.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday ruled out the possibility of signing the 2016 Appropriation Bill passed by the National Assembly last week early as expected by Nigerians and other stakeholders.
President Buhari
He said before he would append his signature to the document, he would do a ministry-by-ministry review of the budget to ensure that what had been returned to him was the same with what his administration submitted to the National Assembly.
According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President spoke on Thursday during a meeting with the United States Secretary of State, Mr. John Kerry, in Washington DC.
Buhari is currently in the US for the 4th Nuclear Security Summit.
He insisted that he would review the bill critically before assenting to it.
He said the thorough review was necessitated by alteration and padding of the budget proposals which were carried out by some unnamed persons.
The President said there was the need to review the appropriation bill to be certain that its contents tallied with the authentic budget proposal presented to the National Assembly.
“Some bureaucrats removed what we put in the proposal and replaced them with what they wanted. I have to look at the bill that has been passed by the National Assembly, ministry by ministry, to be sure that what has been brought back for me to sign is in line with our original submission,” Buhari said.
The President also used the opportunity of the meeting to promise that his administration would continue to vigorously prosecute its war against corruption.
He sought and received an assurance from Kerry that the US would facilitate the repatriation of all stolen Nigerian funds found within the American banking system.
“It will greatly help our country if you assist us to recover all our stolen funds which we can establish to be within your financial system,” the President told Kerry.
Responding, the Secretary of State said he had been told that the stolen Nigerian funds were in “billions of dollars”.
“It’s not easy to hide that amount of money and we are pretty good in tracing them,” Kerry assured Buhari.
He added that relevant US officials would meet with the Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, to discuss further cooperation in that regard.
Kerry applauded the Buhari administration’s success in rolling back the Boko Haram insurgency, saying the US would continue to give Nigeria all possible support to ensure that the terror sect was finally eliminated as a threat to national and regional security.
The Secretary of State also hailed Buhari’s order that Nigeria’s Armed Forces must show greater regard for human rights in the theatre of operations against Boko Haram.
Acknowledging that the US had been of great help to his administration in the retraining and re-equipping of the Nigerian Armed Forces that had resulted in the significant success already achieved against Boko Haram, Buhari said the Federal Government was working very hard to restore normalcy to the north eastern states.
“Boko Haram no longer holds any local government area. We are reconstructing damaged facilities and preparing the police to take over and reassert civilian control over areas affected by the insurgency,” the President told Kerry.
Meanwhile, senators and members of the House of Representatives are unhappy with their respective chairmen of the Committees on Appropriation over the hasty recommendations that pushed the National Assembly into passing the 2016 budget without including the details, The PUNCH learnt on Thursday.
Findings showed that lawmakers in both chambers on the advice of the committees, had passed the estimates of the budget on Wednesday last week without the details in the hope that the committees would attach them before the Appropriation Bill was forwarded to the President for assent.
“As it turned out, this did not happen. Their action seriously places the National Assembly at a disadvantaged position whereby the Presidency found the opportunity to really hit lawmakers below the belt,” an influential National Assembly official told The PUNCH on Thursday.
“This was a budget that was full of errors from the side of the executive. The executive admitted that there were indeed errors and sent in corrections.
“Having taken so long to work on these errors, the committees were not expected to allow any loopholes regarding the issue of details, thereby turning the heat on the National Assembly.”
A former Governor of Gombe State, Danjuma Goje, chairs the Senate Committee on Appropriation, while a second-term lawmaker from Kano State, Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, heads that of the House of Reps.
Investigations indicated that Buhari’s refusal to sign the 2016 Appropriation Bill without the details of the budget had jolted Senators and members of the House, who had all along thought that they had been properly guided by the committees.
A senior legislator, who did not want to be quoted, said Buhari was right to have refused to sign the budget.
He told The PUNCH that lawmakers were quite angry but found it difficult to openly condemn Goje and Jibrin because it would send the “wrong signals” that the National Assembly members were fighting against themselves.
The legislator added, “The President is right. How did we get to the point of sending the budget to him without the details?
“It is like asking Buhari to sign his own death warrant. Yes, the budget estimates are important but the details are the main issue. The devil that we talk about in budgeting, is in the details, not the highlights.
“If you sign the highlights, you have agreed to accept responsibility for any flaws in the details as well.
“It is our cross, let us carry it. After suffering to clean up the errors of the executive, we allowed ourselves to be bashed by this mistake of not waiting to fine-tune the details before rushing the bill to Mr. President.”
The PUNCH made fruitless efforts to get the views of the Majority Leader of the House, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Minority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor, on the development.
As of the time of filing this report on Thursday, text messages sent to the lawmakers by one of our correspondents had not been responded to.
On Wednesday, Jibrin had defended the action of the National Assembly in sending the budget to Buhari without the details.
He claimed that in the past, Presidents had signed the estimates without the details, which would normally come after one or two weeks of passing the budget.
He singled out former President Olusegun Obasanjo for having done that, admitting though that it was the prerogative of Buhari to refuse to sign until he had seen the details.
The Senate and the House had passed a budget estimate of N6.06tn on March 23.
The harmonised figure of N6.06tn passed was about N17bn less than the initial N6.07tn proposed by Buhari.
However, the National Assembly retained most of the projections of the President, including the $38 proposed as the crude oil benchmark.
The Senate has passed the 2016 budget preparatory to the passage of the budget.
The Senate Committee on Appropriation presented a budget of 6.06 trillion Naira budget to the Senate for passage.
In the report, the Committee of Appropriation set recurrent expenditure at 2.6 trillion, capital expenditure at 1.5 trillion and fiscal deficit at 2.2 trillion.
The Committee observed that the executive presented the budget late to the National Assembly and this has subsequently delayed the passage.
The Committee also noted that the budget, as presented by the executive, was fraught with inconsistencies as some Ministers disowned their budgets.
The Committee is recommending that going forward, the Budget Office must work with MDA’s in preparing the budget to avoid the problem of inadequate revenue for MDA’s.
The Senate on Wednesday, passed the 2016 Appropriation Bill sent to joint session of the national assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari, on December 22, 2015. Details later…
The Chairman of the Delta State House of Assembly Committee on Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC), Hon. Dennis Omovie has said the State House of Assembly is not aware of the existence of DESOPADEC budget for 2016.
Ifeanyi Okowa
He also described as laughable reports that the speaker has already signed the purported 2016 DESOPADEC budget into law.
“The speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Monday Igbuya does not have as part of his duties the signing of budget to law. It is strictly the responsibility of the governor to sign budget
into law. It is also a statement of fact that the speaker is not privy to the formulation of budgetary allocation to various agencies of government until the state governor forwards same to the House. It is
most laughable for anybody or institution to ascribe to the speaker the responsibility of signing DESOPADEC budget into law.”
Hon Omovie, the member representing Warri South Constituency 11 in the Delta State House of Assembly, therefore advised journalists not to overheat the polity.
“There is a level of responsibility from members of the public especially the fourth estate of the realm. The fact that there is paucity of fund should not make certain people to throw caution to the
wind. The process of budgeting should be known to the press. These processes are well laid out in the laws governing the day to day running of the state. Members of the press and the public are
therefore advised to always verify and authenticate their sources of information before going to the press.”
He urged Deltans at home and abroad to ignore the sensational reports by a section of the press.
“Deltans can be rest assured that there is no cause for alarm and that when the DESOPADEC budget comes to the House of Assembly, it will not be a secret affair.”
“We want to apologize to Deltans for any inconveniences” Hon Omovie added.
Senate President Bukola Saraki has expressed the determination of the National Assembly to make the details of its annual budget available to members of the public next week.
Bukola Saraki
Saraki said the development would be a departure from the tradition of having one line item budget by the federal parliament.
The Senate President, according to a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Muhammed Isa, on Sunday, stated this while hosting a team of editors from the London-based The Economist newspaper
He said, “For the first time, we promised Nigerians to give out our budget breakdown. The committee will make its report available by next week. We are resolved to break the tradition of one line item.”
He also pledged to support the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s fight against corruption.
“Under my watch, the Senate will never cover corruption except if the information didn’t come to us,” he added.
Saraki stated that the Senate was ready to partner Buhari to ensure the success of the anti-corruption war.
The Senate, he added, had already demonstrated such commitment through its interventions in many alleged corrupt transactions such as its swift investigation and adoption of a report on the management of the Treasury Single Account that saved the nation about N7bn.
He added that the upper chamber exposed the inconsistencies in the 2016 budget.
The action, he said, was a departure from the past where such reports were either watered down or not presented for debate and adoption.
He cited the report he presented to the seventh Senate on the over N1tn fuel subsidy scam that never saw the light of the day, as an example.
Saraki noted that party differences existed between the senators, citing the example of the leadership tussle in the chamber. He, however, pledged that, national interest and the desire of each senator to fulfil the promises made to Nigerians had become the guiding principle of the lawmakers.
On the economy, he said the Senate had embarked on a series of legislative interventions to create a conducive environment for the private sector.
He stated, “It is only when the private sector thrives that the issue of unemployment will be addressed and the nation’s GDP will increase.”
President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday, made good his threat to deal ruthlessly with top civil servants who altered figures in the 2016 budget thereby making nonsense of his zero budget plan.
President Buhari
No fewer than 184 top budget officials were flushed out of budget duties and sent to establishments that have little or nothing to do with budget, as a punishment for their roles in padding this year’s fiscal document, now before the National Assembly.
A top official in the Budget office confirmed that 22 top officers from the Budget Office of the Federation were affected in the mass deployment. The rest were moved away from budget-related duties in other Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs.
Vanguard learnt that out of the 22 top officials indicted in the budget office, four were directors on Level 17, six were deputy directors while 12 were Assistant directors. As the affected officials were moved from their posts in the Budget Office, 14 other directors said to have been ‘tested’ have been redeployed to the same office with immediate effect.
The order to remove the tainted officials from their previous posts to other duties, was conveyed to the affected offices by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, according to finding by Vanguard.
All the affected officers, according to the directive, are to report in their new locations on or before the close of work today.
When contacted, the Media Adviser to the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr. Akpadem James, confirmed the development but declined to give further details.
It would b recalled that while in Saudi Arabia last month, President Buhari had threatened to punish all those who were involved in the padding of the budget. Apart from removing the director of budget, he also merged the budget office with the planning ministry.
The National Assembly yesterday raised concern about the implementation of the N500 billion special intervention fund, a cardinal programme of the Buhari administration.
President Buhari
The lawmakers were categorical that though the plan by the Federal Government to spend N500 billion on vulnerable Nigerians is laudable, its implementation will pose problems.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje, who raised the issue suggested the suspension the plan in this year’s budget.
Goje spoke at a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation meeting with Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun and top officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Goje noted that the meeting became necessary because members of the National Assembly had given March 17th deadline to pass the budget.
He said Udo-Udoma, Adeosun and others were invited to get their final input before the budget is passed.
He also the lawmakers want to pass an implementable budget.
He said the N500 billion special intervention fund’s implementation is not clearly stated in the budget.
Goje, an APC senator from Gombe and a former governor of the state on Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform, said how would the beneficiaries of the programme be selected.
He added that there was no doubt that it would turn into a political jamboree for political office holders.
Goje who noted that market women were listed as part of those who would benefit from the fund wondered how market women would be selected.
He said that in his home state of Gombe, there are no market women but market men.
The lawmaker also declared the school feeding initiative planned by the government as un-implementable.
Insisting that school feeding programme is largely unsustainable, he wondered how billions of naira would be spent on feeding pupils when most of them study under trees due to lack of class rooms.
The government, he said, should take a second look at the programmes, fine tune them and leave the implementation for the 2017 fiscal year.
ButUdo- Udoma said the programmes were political promises that should be implemented in the interest of the people.
The minister added that he would take back the concerns raised by the lawmakers to the government.
He said the programmes were commitments that must be done.
On recovered funds, Udoma said only established recovered funds could be put in the budget.
He denied knowledge of a circular directing MDAs to implement only the budget as presented by President Muhammadu Buhari saying “I don’t think that the National Assembly will give us back the budget the way it came.”
Udo-Udoma also insisted that the template of the 2016 budget is zero budgeting.
He added however that “zero budgeting does not mean that we don’t have a limit.”
The minister admitted that the implementation of the budget would be difficult especially with falling oil price in the international market.
He noted that though the price of oil is dwindling, the cost of production remained the same, describing the development as a major challenge.
Udoma told the lawmakers not to increase the size of the budget in order not to make its implementation more difficult.
On the sources of funding the budget, he said the government planned to borrow N1.8 trillion half of which would be foreign loan.
He said the government was now being forced to look inward to raise funds to implement the budget.
The minister said the government is expecting more revenue from non oil sector of the economy including broadening the tax base.
On oil benchmark of $38 pb, he said that benchmark will still be retained despite falling oil price.
The benchmark, he said, was arrived at after wide consultation.
He said that the personnel cost component of the budget is another major challenge for the government.
He noted that though government does not plan to retrench workers, “Government is trying to use technology to ensure that salaries actually go to people who are working.
Mrs Adeosun spoke on how to fund the budget.
The minister told the lawmakers that independently-generated revenue would largely be used to fund the budget.
She noted that cost-saving would be another means to fund the budget.
The lawmakers also drew Udo-Udoma’s attention to the concern of some Civil Society Organisations of about N668 billion frivolous provisions in the budget.
President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed that all those involved in the padding of the 2016 National Budget, which led to the discrepancies in the document, will face the most severe punishment.
President Buhari
He said the alterations, which he described as embarrassing and disappointing, made the document, being debated in the National Assembly, completely different from what was prepared by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
According to a statement on Wednesday by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President spoke in Riyadh while addressing the Nigerian community in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday evening.
The President was said to have condemned the distortion of the budget proposals by those he called entrenched interests.
Buhari stated that since he had been holding public offices, he had never heard about budget padding before the current incident.
He regretted that the unauthorised alterations had completely changed the document from the one he presented to the National Assembly.
The President, however, gave the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma, a clean bill of health, saying he did a good job.
Buhari said, “The culprits will not go unpunished. I have been a military governor, petroleum minister, military Head of State and headed the Petroleum Trust Fund.
“Never had I heard the words budget padding. Our Minister of Budget and National Planning did a great job with his team.
“The minister became almost half his size during the time, working night and day to get the budget ready, only for some people to pad it.
“What he gave us was not what was finally being debated. It is very embarrassing and disappointing. We will not allow those who did it to go unpunished.”
The President also assured members of the Nigerian community that his administration was working diligently to fulfil its campaign promises, particularly on security, unemployment and corruption.
Reaffirming his government’s zero tolerance for corruption, Buhari said the war against corruption was a monumental task that he was determined to tackle successfully.
“We have zero tolerance for corruption and other unethical practices. We will deal decisively with anybody found wanting,” he promised members of the Nigerian community.
Buhari also used the opportunity of the gathering to brief Nigerians in Saudi Arabia on his administration’s efforts to end the Boko Haram insurgency and terrorism in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government are to lose “idle funds” in many sub-heads of their capital votes this year, The PUNCH learnt on Wednesday.
Findings showed that the development was fallout of the ongoing clean-up of the 2016 budget by committees of the National Assembly.
It was gathered that the House of Representatives in particular, had directed its standing committees to remove all idle funds and re-allocate them to sub-heads that were in urgent need of money for capital projects.
This came to the fore on Monday when the health ministry uncovered the allocation of N2.8bn meant for the public and family health departments in the 2016 budget to a contractor for a project that had yet to be evaluated or awarded.
The 2016 budget of N6.07tn has a capital component of N1.8tn, up from the N557bn budgeted in 2015.
A top source told The PUNCH that most of the MDAs had such idle funds in sub-heads where they were not needed.
The source added, “What has come to our notice is that they keep money, where, for one reason or another, there is no intention to use the funds.
“Some may be a case of lack of capacity, but there are several cases where the money is just left lying.
“The committees will put these funds where they will be useful. Our target is that more capital projects should be executed this year.
“The practice of spending 100 per cent of the overhead earmarked for capital projects, while the latter are abandoned must stop this year.”
Investigations showed that over 15 standing committees had already submitted their recommendations on the re-allocation of funds to the main Committee on Appropriation.
The Committee on Appropriation, which is chaired by an All Progressives Congress lawmaker from Kano State, Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, was expected to sit on Tuesday to receive reports from more standing committees on their findings.
The House had shut its plenary for the second time on Wednesday last week to give the committees additional time to complete the budget defence.
When The PUNCH sought the comments of the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, he said the Reps could not give a full report on the budget until the Committee on Appropriation had concluded its assignment.
Namdas added, “The truth is that the defence of proposals by the MDAs is still in progress.
“Those committees that have completed their sessions with the MDAs are to submit their reports to the Committee on Appropriation.
“The Committee on Appropriation will have to compile all the reports and then make its own recommendations to the House. So, for now, we don’t have a general outlook of the clean-up.’’
Namdas added that the House would keep to its promise to pass the budget in the second week of March.
Meanwhile, officials of the Ministry of Health have called for an investigation into the allocation of N2.8bn, meant for the public and family health departments in the 2016 budget, to a contractor for a project that has yet to be evaluated or awarded.
It was learnt that the ministry did not allocate any funds to the two critical departments, which were in charge of epidemic outbreak and maternal mortality.
Officials, who spoke to one of our correspondents on Wednesday in Abuja, insisted that the Federal Government needed to probe and sanction the personnel involved in the scam, which was uncovered a few weeks ago by the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, during a top management meeting of the ministry.
The Head, Planning, Research and Statistics Department in the ministry, Dr. Ngozi Azodo, whose unit is responsible for the budget preparation, could not be reached for comment. She did not respond to repeated calls to her mobile.
Also, she had yet to respond to a text message that was sent to her as of the time of filing this report.
The Director, Press, Ministry of Health, Mrs. Boade Akinola, admitted that there were discrepancies in the ministry’s budget, but noted that such alterations had been resolved.
THE Auditor-General of the Federation ( AGF), Samuel Ukura, on Thursday, contradicted President Muhammadu Buhari’s claims that the 2016 budget was based on zero-based budget template, insisting that the budget was based on the existing envelope system.
Ukura, speaking while appearing before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts, headed by Senator Andy Uba, said the template adopted in preparing the N6.08 trillion 2016 budget estimates was the envelope system and not the zero-based budget system earlier announced by President Buhari’s during the presentation on December 22, 2015.
He said though the earlier intention by the present government was to adopt the zero-based budgeting template, the realities on ground later forced it to adopt the usual envelope-based budgeting system.
The Auditor General explained that even the N2.9 billion budget estimates of his office for the year was not arrived at through zero budgeting, but handed over to them as an envelope by the Ministry of Finance.
“Budgets of all ministries, departments and agencies of government this year are all envelope-based and not zero-based as it has been the case over the years, including that of my office, which is even largely done for us by the supervising ministry.
“In zero-based budgeting, it is assumed that such expenditure does not exist, you start from zero and justify why that expenditure must be used. It is a system which is good and which would has also helped to set targets, but that wasn’t applied at the end of the day, perhaps, because it was hurriedly being introduced,” he said.
However, Senators Akpan Bassey and Foster Ogala reminded him that his submission on the 2016 budget template ran contrary to the presentation by President Buhari during the joint session of the National Assembly on December 22.
Ukura was also taken up by the committee members on why his office had not deemed it fit to audit the account of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) for always budgeting N32 billion for recurrent expenditure covering staff strength of about 1,400 the same staff strength of the AGF’s office which has N1.8 billion as its votes for recurrent expenditure.
The senators also expressed surprise that not a single audit query was raised from the SGF’s office in the face of widespread cases of graft being carried out in various government offices through budget padding under recurrent and overhead votes.
