Okonjo-Iweala single handedly wrote 2013 budget – Reps

Speaking to Sunday Trust yesterday in Abuja, Jibrin said the only person that might have been in the know of the budget document is the Director General of the Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu with the exception of all relevant government ministries and agencies while writing the budget document.   “With all sense of honesty […]

Speaking to Sunday Trust yesterday in Abuja, Jibrin said the only person that might have been in the know of the budget document is the Director General of the Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu with the exception of all relevant government ministries and agencies while writing the budget document.

 

“With all sense of honesty this budget is a product of one or two persons, the minister of finance and DG budget wrote it and we are not going to accept that.

“During the consideration of the Medium Term Expenditure Frame Work and Fiscal Strategy paper, all the agencies that are supposed to provide input to make the document, most of them didn’t have a copy of the MTEF and did not know what it contained which actually means that the two of them sat down and prepared it.

“And it is the MTEF that they used to prepare the budget but we won’t accept this, all the agencies such as NNPC, DPR, CBN, FIRS, Customs etc said they didn’t know anything about it,” Jibrin said.

The legislator insisted that the House will not go back on the issue of $80 oil bench mark which it increased from $75.

On the MTEF document as passed by the House last Tuesday, the MP said:  “The MTEF did not also capture external borrowing, did not provide plan on how to manage the independent revenue, it did not say anything on gas revenue. Nobody knows what we make in gas.”

“We are not going back on $80 oil bench mark because the issue is that at $75 they claim there is crisis in Euro zone but they are not Nigerians the is crisis in the middle east and Sudan and that the US economy is gradually picking up and all forecast by international agencies project above $100 and what percentage of our crude oil is being consumed by Europeans? We are determined to stop this now. The $5 increase is to finance budget deficit,” he added.