The two
arms of the National Assembly, NASS, declared, yesterday, that the 2016 budget
was full of errors, saying the document could no longer be passed on February
25 as earlier promised.
This came on a day the Senate Committee on Gas
Resources rejected the N200 million allocation demanded by the Federal Ministry
of Petroleum Resources in the budget for the treatment of Petroleum Industry
Bill, PIB, and another N200 million for a review of Nigeria Gas Master Plan.
Similarly, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, yesterday, urged President
Muhammadu Buhari to save the country the national embarrassment being caused by
the 2016 budget he presented to the National Assembly by formally withdrawing
and representing it. Budget can’t be passed, say Goje, Jibrin Chairman, Senate
Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, and his House of
Representatives counterpart, Jibrin Abdulmumin, who disclosed this at a
briefing, said the budget was fraught with too many errors, which had made its
passage into law impossible.
Buhari presents N6.08trn 2016 budget to NASS
Senator Goje noted that the Presidency had also admitted that there were errors
in the budget, explaining that it would be inappropriate to give a new date now
due to the errors that they would have to work on. He said: “We are here in
connection with the ongoing processing of the 2016 Budget because these two committees
are the ones saddled with the production of the final copies of the budget that
would be passed by the National Assembly for onward submission to Mr President
for his assent and subsequent implementation. “We want to remove all
ambiguities, we want to remove all paddings.
We want to produce a budget that
is in line with the constitutional provision. During the budget defence, a lot
of issues based on the padding of the budget, arising from over-bloated
overheads and in some instances cases of over-bloated personnel cost. “But
generally, there has been a lot of issues. The appropriation committee would
look at these issues after the whole budget defence and do a very thorough work
aimed at doing a proper clean-up of the budget. “So in summary, the time-table
for passage of the budget is no longer realistic because as appropriation
committees of both chambers of the National Assembly, we need additional time
to do a thorough job for the 2016 budget.” On his part, the House Chairman on
Appropriation Committee, Abdulmumin, agreed that the two committees would have
to do a proper clean up of the budget.
He said: “So we can pass a budget that
is implementable and also acceptable to Nigerians. It is no longer realistic
because we need sufficient time to pass a comprehensive budget. “The President
is an individual, the budget runs in thousands of pages, the President will not
be able to go through it page by page.” He explained that once the budget is
passed into law, the life span of the budget would be counted to ensure that
Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, implement it. Asked to react to a
threat made by the Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, that he would
withdraw his budget, Jibrin said the withdrawing of a budget by the executive
would not be tolerated by NASS.
Both chairmen also denied that the sudden shift
in date had political colouration, adding that the shift was because of the
many errors discovered in the budget. Senate rejects N200m on PIB The Senate
Committee on Gas Resources also yesterday, rejected the N200 million demanded
in the budget by the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources for treatment of
the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB. The committee also rejected request for
allocation of additional N200 million for a review of the Nigeria Gas Master
Plan. The ministry, while defending its 2016 Budget before the committee, had
said it needed N200 million for the passage of the PIB in the National
Assembly. Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Dr.
Jamila Shuaru, while making presentation at the committee’s sitting, insisted
that the amount was needed for the treatment of the petroleum bill.
But Senator
Bassey Albert Akpan, chairman of the committee, backed by other members, said
the allocation was not necessary because, according to him, the bill is already
with the National Assembly. “This bill is already with the National Assembly.
So what do we need the money for? I don’t think you need the money. This could
be one of the reasons we have so much deficit in this year’s budget. Unless you
can justify this expenditure, we need to do away with this,” Senator Albert
said. The committee members who spoke at the meeting, concurred with the
chairman that the bill did not need additional funding for it to be passed. The
committee also disagreed with the ministry officials over the N200 million
proposed in the 2016 budget for a review of Nigerian Gas Master Plan.
The
committee said it discovered that funding request for the plan had been a
recurring figure in previous budgets. “You cannot be asking for funds to review
what you have not even implemented,” Senator Albert said, adding that the only
problem with the PIB was that there was no law backing it up. Briefing the
committee further, Dr. Jamila Shuaru said the country could not meet its gas
needs because, according to her, many exigencies worked against the success of
the programme. One of the exigencies, she said, was the $8 billion court
judgement procured against the ministry by an investor whose identity she did
not disclose. Save us this shame, by Fayose On his part, Ekiti State governor,
Mr Ayodele Fayose, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to save the country the
national embarrassment being caused by the budget he presented to the National
Assembly by formally withdrawing and representing it.
The governor in a
statement issued by his Special Assistant on Pubic Communications and New
Media, Lere Olayinka, said: “The President should admit that there were
avoidable errors in the budget and since he is human and not immune to errors,
he should simply do the needful by presenting a new and credible budget to the
National Assembly.” Governor Fayose described the revelation by Health
Minister, Isaac Adewole, that the proposal drawn up by the ministry and
submitted to the budget office had been doctored and that “foreign”
appropriations, different from what was submitted, had been sneaked in as the
height of national embarrassment.
While addressing the Senate Committee on
Health during its budget defence session on Monday, Professor Adewole had
stunned senators when he said details of the budget were not what he submitted
to the Senate. Fayose said: “Last week, we were told that the Senate discovered
a sum of N10 billion questionably smuggled into the budget of the Ministry of Education
for an allegedly questionable sub-head. “Also, we were told of the existence of
a budget mafia in the Presidency that was said to be responsible for the
embarrassing allocations in the budget.
“Before now, we were told that a total
of N3.87 billion was allocated for capital projects at the State House Clinic
alone, over N700 million more than capital allocation to all the 16 federal
teaching hospitals combined. “Now, a whole minister has come out to say that
budgetary provision for his ministry was forged! “If under a President that
says he is fighting corruption, the budget of the country got missing and we
are now being told that the budget being considered by the National Assembly
has been forged, one cannot but be afraid that there is possibility of Nigeria
being forged one day, after the original must have gone missing.”
Budget well
structured, says Ministry official The Ministry of Budget and Planning says
that the 2016 Budget proposals submitted to the National Assembly (NASS)
by President Muhammadu Buhari, were very well structured and targeted at
reviving the economy, notwithstanding the fall in the oil price. The ministry
was reacting to different opinions trailing the 2016 budget proposal. It said
that some errors were not unexpected in the changeover to the new Zero Based
Budget, ZBB, approach. In a statement, issued yesterday by the Director of
Information, Mr. Charles Dafe, the Ministry said the Budget staff in the
Ministry of Budget and National Planning, as well as those handling
budget issues in all Ministries and Extra Ministerial Agencies (MDAs)
were already grappling to master the technicalities in the ZBB template to
address all irregularities in the budget.
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