Now is nobody out there worried that we are in the fourth month and yet there is no end in sight as to this signing of buget issue?
Why in the world with members of the National Assembly pad the budget for their selfish ends? Do this pple understand what budgetting is all about? And now I hear President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua might ask the Supreme Court to determine whether the National Assembly has any constitutional power to increase the Appropriation Bill sent to it by the executive or not.
The way it is going we might to have this budget until June or July o! Anyways feel free and send me your comment.
Meanwhile enjoy the story
Why Yar'Adua refuses assent to budget
From Martins Oloja,
Abuja Bureau Chief
PRESIDENT Umaru Musa Yar'Adua may be insisting on his philosophy of good governance rather than what many have seen as muscle-flexing with the legislature in his refusal to assent to the 2008 Appropriation Bill as passed by the National Assembly.
The President's aides and senior officials of the Budget Office, who spoke on the budget crisis at the weekend, explained that Yar'Adua was not particularly keen on embarking on new projects that his administration may not complete.
They listed seven aspects of the budget in which the President believes that the legislature erred by voting funds and listed certain projects in the document they expect the executive to fully implement.
Yar'Adua is said to have frowned at new projects being included in the budget without any input from the executive.
Even at that, the officials of the Presidency and Finance Ministry said that the President was not maintaining a hardline position on the matter even though he had resisted pressure to sign it. In fact, the senior government officials said that Yar'Adua would this week parley with the leadership of the National Assembly on his reservations on the grey areas in the budget.
The argument of Yar'Adua, according to Presidency officials assisted by Budget Office experts, is that the National may not have taken into account some of his administration's "priorities in line with overall national plan, macroeconomic stability and strategies, which made the President to place emphasis on completing old projects instead of starting new ones, which could end up being abandoned."
According to them, some of the areas where there are distortions in the budget are the inclusion of new projects without consultation.
The issue is whether the legislature can unilaterally initiate projects and allocate money for such schemes in the budget without consultations with the executive given that the design, costing, due process certification, execution and supervision is vested in the executive.
The Presidency also noted that "the National Assembly is alleged to have distorted the budget by encouraging ministries and departments to submit to them sundry projects for which they allocated money thus usurping the functions of the executive, whose duty it is to initiate budget...question even arises as to how they were able to determine the costs of the projects inserted."
Besides, they said the Budget Office is fully persuaded that "the figures are just 'guesstimates' which make nonsense of the budgeting process."
Also, at stake is the raising of the budget benchmark by the National Assembly. The Budget Office confirmed that the raising of the oil price from $53.83 per barrel to $59 per barrel was agreed with officials of the Ministry of Finance based on the understanding that the extra revenue would be used to reduce the fiscal deficit in the original executive proposal.
The officials explained that contrary to the agreement, "the National Assembly has devoted much of the extra revenue to increase total expenditure, leading to deficit rising from N468 billion under the executive budget to N554 billion proposed by the National Assembly."
According to Budget Office officials, "the choice of $53.83 per barrel benchmark was based on a macro-economic framework designed to ensure stability in the system to keep liquidity at a manageable level, check inflation and provide an environment for interest rates to start to move downward which the present increases will jeopardise."
The President was also said to have rejected the raising of capital votes by the Assembly.
Yar'Adua particularly kicked at the jump of the budget of the Ministry of Transportation to N61 billion, of which N36 billion is for new projects; Agriculture and Water Resources (N20.4 billion); Defence (N17 billion); Interior (N15 billion); FCT (N12.9 billion); Science and Technology (N6.3 billion).
Budget Office experts said the President is convinced that "while some of these projects could probably benefit from increased allocations, the lawmakers didn't factor in the implementation capacity of the various ministries since they were not consulted which means if the money comes into the system, it is likely going to be wasted."
Another poser raised by the President is in the sphere of introducing new heads votes.
The budget officials alleged that the lawmakers inserted new vote heads into the budget with Federal Polytechnics (Bali, Ekowe, and Ugbokolo) being the beneficiaries. Both Bali and Ekowe were established in 2005 as federal institutions, but were not allocated funds at that time because they had not taken off.
For this reason they were also not budgeted for in the 2008 executive budget.
The officials said it was curious that provision was also made for Ugbokolo Polytechnic, owned by the Benue State government, which is located at Okpokwu Local Council.
Also, several professional council registration boards that never used to be in the budget (architecture, quantity surveyors, societies of engineers, estate surveyors, builders and town planners as well as advertising practitioners of Nigeria among others) were allocated money by the National Assembly without consultation with the executive.
The amount budgeted under these new vote heads is N2.1 billion.
In the same vein, the Presidency officials alleged that "the personnel costs granted to a number of ministries and agencies were raised without making provision for the social costs like pension and NHIS, which would have been calculated automatically if it had been based on the Budget Office's template had there been consultations with the executive."
A few of the cases of personnel cost increases include the Ministries of Agriculture (N227.3 million); Interior (N520 million); Transportation (N635.8 million); Energy (N526 million); Commerce and Industry (N382 million); Culture and Tourism (N116 million).
The state officials confirmed that "the increases were not based on any known shortfall reported by these ministries, and officials of the ministries confirmed to the Presidency and Budget Office authorities that they had no shortfalls. So where will these monies go?"
Another area of discontent in the budget is some unsolicited increases in the overhead allocation to some ministries, including education by N1.65 billion; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF (N2.1 billion); Youth Development (N377 million); and Presidency (N900 million).
The other issue the President is said to have frowned at is the way the National Assembly allegedly inserted some clauses that violate the principle of separation of powers.
One of them is that the Accountant-General of the Federation and CBN Governor must furnish National Assembly monthly with details. This is seen by the President as undue interference with Executive functions.
Also, accounting officers are to present quarterly reports to National Assembly. This clause is also seen as an interference with executive functions.
The House also demanded that the Accountant-General of the Federation must disclose details of funds releases to the National Assembly. This too is seen by the President as another unnecessary interference with executive functions.
Yar’Adua May Go To Supreme Court
Iyobosa Uwugiaren
• Meets with NASS leadership tomorrow
President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua might ask the Supreme Court to determine whether the National Assembly has any constitutional power to increase the Appropriation Bill sent to it by the executive or not.
The president’s threat, LEADERSHIP gathered last night, informed the decision of leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to quickly summon a meeting between principal officers of the National Assembly and the presidency to resolve issues delaying the passage of 2008 Appropriation Bill.
The issue is whether the legislature can unilaterally initiate projects and provide money for such projects in the budget without consultations with the executive, given that the design, costing, execution and supervision of such projects are vested in the executive arm of government.
The National Assembly is said to have distorted and mutilated the budget by encouraging ministries and government departments to submit to them sundry projects for which they allocated money, thus "usurping the functions of the executive whose duty it is to initiate budget."
According to a source in the Budget Office, "question even arises as to how the lawmakers were able to determine the costs of the projects inserted."
According to a source, the figures are just estimates, which makes nonsense of the budgeting process.
The source confirmed that the raising of the benchmark oil price from $53.83 per barrel to $59 per barrel was agreed with officials of the Ministry of Finance based on the understanding that the extra revenue would be used to reduce the fiscal deficit in the original Executive proposal.
"As it turned out, the National Assembly has devoted much of the extra revenue to increase total expenditure, resulting in an increase in the deficit from N468 billion under the executive budget proposal to N554 billion," it added.
"The choice of $53.83 per barrel benchmark was based on a macro-economic framework designed to ensure stability in the system, bearing in mind the necessity to keep liquidity at a manageable level, thereby keeping inflation in check and providing an environment for interest rates to start to move downward, which the present increases would jeopardize."
The other issues include the unilateral increase of the capital votes for several ministries, including: Ministry of Transportation (N61 billion, of which N36 billion is for new projects); Agriculture and Water Resources (N20.4 billion); Defence (N17 billion); Interior (N15 billion); FCT (N12.9 billion); Science & Technology (N6.3 billion), etc.
The argument of the source is that while some of these projects could probably benefit from increased allocations, the lawmakers didn’t factor in the implementation capacity of the various ministries since they were not consulted, "which means if the money comes into the system, they are likely going to be wasted."
The lawmakers on their part were said to have inserted new vote heads into the budget with a few examples: Federal Polytechnics (Bali, Ekowe, and Ugbokolo). Both Bali and Ekowe were established in 2005 as federal institutions, but were not budgeted for at that time because they had not taken off. For this reason they were also not budgeted for in the 2008 executive budget.
Provision was also made for Ugbokolo, a state government-owned institution in the federal budget.
Several professional council registration boards that never used to be in the budget (Architecture, Quantity Surveyors, Societies of Engineers, Estate Surveyors, Builders and Town Planners as well as Advertising Practitioners of Nigeria, etc, were allocated money. The total amount budgeted under these new vote heads is N2.1 billion.
"The personnel costs granted to a number of ministries and agencies were jerked up without making provision for the social costs like pension and NHIS, which would have been calculated automatically if it had been based on the Budget Office's template had there been consultations with the executive.
"A few of the cases of personnel cost increases include the Ministries of Agriculture (227.3 million); Interior (520 million); Transportation (N635.8 million); Energy (N526 million); Commerce and Industry (382 million); Culture and Tourism (N116 million); etc. The increases were not based on any known shortfall reported by these ministries, and officials of the ministries confirmed that they had no shortfalls.
"So where will these monies go? Assuming there would be increases, should there not be consultation with the executive on how it would be spent?
"There are some unsolicited increases in the overhead allocation to some ministries, including education (by N1.65 billion); SGF (by N2.1 billion); youth development (by N377 million); presidency (by N900 million), and others," the source added.
Contentious clauses in the budget, according to the source is that the lawmakers want the accountant-general of the federation and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor to furnish National Assembly with monthly reports. But the source said, "This is seen as undue interference with executive functions."
"That the accounting officers should present quarterly reports to National Assembly, and that accounting-general of the federation should disclose details of funds releases to National Assembly. All these issues the executive see as undue interference with its power.
The meeting between the president and principal officers of the National Assembly, which was fixed for last night, would now hold tomorrow.
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