Sign the Budget, Amend it Later

The push and pull, accusations, counter accusations and name calling between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the Federal Government’s already over-delayed 2016 budget is the last thing that hard pressed Nigerians want to hear at this time. President Muhammadu Buhari submitted the budget to the National Assembly in December. It turned out to […]

The push and pull, accusations, counter accusations and name calling between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the Federal Government’s already over-delayed 2016 budget is the last thing that hard pressed Nigerians want to hear at this time. President Muhammadu Buhari submitted the budget to the National Assembly in December. It turned out to be full of errors, with the president saying that civil servants “padded” the budget and with ministers disowning their ministries’ budgets when they appeared for budget defence before National Assembly committees.
After three months of back and forth, the National Assembly’s two chambers approved the budget about three weeks ago and transmitted it to the president. Buhari left for the United States the following day and during a meeting with American Secretary of State John Kerry, he said he will not sign the budget until he saw the details. He said what the National Assembly transmitted to his office were only the highlights and not the full budget. On Thursday penultimate week, the National Assembly transmitted to the president the budget’s details.
An emergency Federal Executive Council [FEC] took place the next day to scrutinize the budget details. Buhari did not attend the meeting, which was chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Nigerians expected Buhari, who was about to travel again to China, to quickly sign the budget but this did not happen. Instead, an unnamed top government official leaked to select newspapers the story that President Buhari would return the budget to the National Assembly because it had tampered with certain major projects contained in the president’s proposals. He said while some projects were removed, some had funds provided them “ridiculously slashed.” The key project allegedly removed from the budget by the lawmakers was the Calabar-Lagos coastal rail line, for which Buhari provided N60 billion in the budget estimates. The Assembly was said to have preserved the Kano/Lagos railway project intact but it also slashed by N8.7 billion the amount set aside for completion of the Idu/Kaduna railway project. This crafty “revelation” by a government official quickly resurrected North-South tension, with Southern Nigerian groups calling on the president not to sign the budget until the coastal rail project is restored.
Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee Abdulmumin Jibrin of Kano swiftly denied the claim, saying the Lagos/Calabar rail project was never captured in the budget estimates that Buhari submitted to the National Assembly. Jibrin said “Lagos-Calabar Railway line was NEVER captured in the budget that was sent by the Executive. How then could it have been removed by NASS? How could National Assembly remove what was not there?”
The next day Senator Gbenga Ashafa countered Jibrin, saying the project was indeed included in the Executive’s budget. According to Ashafa, while the rail project was not included in the budget earlier submitted to the National Assembly, it was included in the amended version. He said when Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi appeared before the Senate Committee on Land Transport for budget defence, “he 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 question to ask Ashafa is, is that the right way for the Executive to submit budget proposals to the Assembly? If ministers were to go before Assembly committees and submit new project proposals not contained in the president’s submission, there will be total chaos. Indeed, President Olusegun Obasanjo sacked his first Health Minister, Dr. Tim Menakaya, precisely because he accused him of conniving with the Senate Health Committee then headed by Senator Arthur Nzeribe to add health projects that Obasanjo had no asked for.
Mid last week the Executive began to soft pedal, with Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) Senator Ita Enang saying President Buhari did not reject the 2016 budget as being speculated. He said what Buhari did before travelling to China was to send the budget to ministries in order to get feedbacks that would inform his assent. “This is to enable him get opinion on the state of the budget to enable him take a decision…The question has not arisen as to returning or otherwise.” The House of Representatives also soft pedalled, saying it will re-examine the 2016 budget. It asked Speaker Yakubu Dogara to meet with President Buhari to resolve disagreement over the budget. The question however is, can the House re-examine a bill already passed by both chambers of the National Assembly and transmitted to the president for his assent? This cannot be done unless the president formally withholds assent. Other issues also crept out in this impasse, including that National Assembly Committees padded the budget with new projects. Abdulmumin Jibrin alone was said to have added N4 billion worth of projects for his Bebeji/Kiru federal constituency, for which he nearly got the sack.
We must however tell both President Buhari and the National Assembly that Nigerians have no appetite at all for the ongoing budget imbroglio. With the economy and society at a virtual standstill due to acute fuel and power shortages, with companies closing by the day, with foreign capital flying out, with some states unable to pay workers’ salaries and with citizens waiting anxiously for the promised N500 billion welfare projects, this delay and wrangling are totally uncalled-for. We urge President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the budget as soon as he returns from China. If he desires any changes to it, he should kindly send a Supplementary Budget Bill to the National Assembly as soon as possible.