david.lehman: Making 2013 Budget Different From Previous Ones

The Green Chamber may do well to avoid the shoddy past of budget padding and the resultant spats with the executive on sub-heads, as it commences sessions with agencies and departments of government on the Appropriation Bill this week, TORDUE SALEM writes.

A presidential spokesman pronounced in 2009: Blame the National Assembly for whatever delay on the part of the Presidency in the implementation of the Budget.

But this kind of thinking from the executive preceded 2009 and would recur for long, if the National Assembly and the Presidency do not re-jig their attitudes to budgeting in the country.

Since 1999, when the country returned to democracy, there have been an avalanche of promises of change captured in budgets that have ended up unimplemented, and as much as it goes, the Presidency and the National Assembly must share the blame in this.

The National Assembly on its part, though empowered by section 80 of the 1999 Constitution to overhaul budget estimates from the executive, has often gone overboard with that constitutional privilege, to cut dangerous deals with heads of agencies, where they pad the estimates for the agencies, only to go behind and cream off the balance.

The lawmakers also overload the budget with too many sub-heads, bothering on constituency projects and the likes and sometimes, even cut deals with Permanent Secretaries of ministries, ministers and other heads of agencies to allow their chosen contractors execute the contracts.

Failure to impliment the national budget is without doubt, an impeachable offence, but besides the ripple effect of the impeachment treat, which has the inevitable potential of reversing the fortunes of a country, it can also be extremely difficult when the National Assembly itself shares the blame in the non-implementation of budgets.

In 2005, the Senate were on the spot for the pork-barrel act of jerking up sub-heads and demanding N25 million bribe from a former Minister of Education, Prof. Fabian Osuji.

The deal backfired. Osuji was booted out of office and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), then headed by the blazing Mallam Nuhu Ribadu moved in and picked the then chairmen of Appropriation and Education committees.

The nation was stunned as then President, Olusegun Obasanjo, went ahead to make a show of it on television. Nigerians thought that would deter the lawmakers, but as the budget rituals have rolled by, more deals are continually being cut and spats with the Presidency have continued to deepen.

Many civil society organisations, besides the troubling trend of budget-padding by the National Assembly, have also observed that the National Assembly itself is not even doing enough in terms of oversight on the executive, with a view to avoiding budgets with in-built deficits and situations where key organisations continue to short-change the federation as foreign reserves and the Excess Crude Account continues to deplete. Since 2009, agencies like the Nigerian Ports Authority, the Nigerian Customs and more than 20 other agencies have not been remitting to the Federation Account.

The NPA, for example, has argued on many occasions that the Act establishing it, allows it to gather revenue and spend as it deems necessary.

This has gone unchallenged by the National Assembly, by way of removing that clause from the Act or compelling the NPA and others like it to tow the line of section 162 of the 1999 Constitution that compels revenue-generating agencies to remit to the Federation Account.

Between 2009 to date, the nation has an accumulated budget deficit of about N5 trillion, when paradoxically NPA and the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) have made way more than that in revenue within the three years since 2009.

In 2010, the House of Representatives, under Dimeji Bankole, discovered that no fewer than 31 agencies, with the NCS and the NPA topping the list, were guilty of not remitting to the Federation Account, as stipulated by section 162 of the Constitution, part of the reason why the budget deficit had bulged that year.

The blame was rightly put on the Presidency?s table, but the other side of it indicted the National Assembly for not properly doing its job of oversight and ensuring that agencies that were getting huge revenue were remitting religiously to the coffers of the federation.

There were reported cases where signature bonuses derived from Oil-Prospecting Licenses (OPL) issued on behalf of government by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), were never lodged in the Federation Account and the National Assembly Committees on Petroleum allegedly went behind to get their share and let sleeping dogs lie. But the House, however, denied the charges against it.

Two weeks ago, before it embarked on a two-week break, it commenced debate on the 2013 budget estimates laid by President Goodluck Jonathan before a joint session of the National Assembly.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Abdulmumin Jibrin picked holes in the budget estimates, stressing that it was put together by few staff in the Presidency, without inputs from other relevant agencies and institutions of government.

Commenting further on the $80 per barrel of crude oil which the House has adopted as its benchmark for the budget, he wondered why the position of the lower chamber of the National Assembly had attracted so much controversy despite the fact that the decision was taken to protect the nation?s economy from the effects of domestic public debt burden.

In his own contribution to the debate, the Minority Leader of the House, Femi Gbajabiamilla, said he could not understand why the House should deliberate on the document, when it had not even received reports of the various committees which had embarked on oversight trips on the level of implementation of the 2012 budget.

He further aligned with Jibrin that it did not make sense to lower the benchmark for the price of crude oil to $75 per barrel while embarking on external borrowing to finance the deficit in the budget. In his own contribution, Samson Osagie, said he identified fully with the speech that was delivered by the Speaker of the House, Aminu Tambuwal, at the budget presentation.

Tambuwal had described the executive arm?s implementation of the 2012 budget as poor during his vote of thanks after President Jonathan?s presentation of the 2013 budget estimates.

He demanded for tangible achievements that had been achieved with the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme funds (SURE-P) ? an aspect of the revenue profile of the 2012 budget which was introduced after partial withdrawal of fuel subsidy early this year.

He said: This was necessary in order to justify the increment of fuel price from N65 to N97 per litre. In his own remarks on the budget debate, Friday Itulah queried the allocation of N66 billion to the Office of the National Security Adviser, whose responsibility is merely that of coordinating the activities of the various security agencies in the country.

According to him, such a huge allocation should have been used to provide more equipment and facilities for the security agencies in the country.

Farouk Lawan, who has found his voice again after the bribery scandal he was steeped in, acknowledged that though the budget was presented early, what mattered most was whether it was implementable, adding that the 2012 budget was already suffering from the troubles of past budgets of the Federal Government.

Expressing regret that the 2013 budget as presented by President Jonathan did not have any strategy to move the nation?s economy from the public domestic debt trap but rather indicated an intention to borrow more funds to finance the deficit, Lawan said that he hoped that the waivers introduced in the aviation sector of the economy, would not be hijacked by private jet owners.

Pally Iriase said it was strange that the authors of the budget wanted the Federal Government to borrow funds to finance the budget at a high interest rate while at the same time saving proceeds from crude oil.

Emmanuel Jime described the N81 billion allocated to the agricultural sector as too low, adding that this would not address the problem of youth unemployment so pervasive across the country.

But the Deputy Leader of the House, Leo Ogor, was full of praises for the 2013 budget, stressing that President Jonathan should not only be commended for the early presentation of the document but also for the increment in the capital expenditure proposal.

He added that the allocation to the education sector and other infrastructure would make a positive impact on the economy, adding that the budget emphasised consolidation on ongoing projects. He, however, disagreed with the government?s plan on domestic borrowing. In her remarks, Peace Nnaji commended the President?s budget presentation, adding that it would enhance economic growth.

The House later referred the 2013 budget proposal to the House Committee on Appropriation for further consideration. The questions remains: will they avoid the pitfalls of the past and make their own contributions conscientiously to help achieve workability of the 2013 budget? Time will surely tell!

Culled from Nigeriamasterweb