Senate President David Mark yesterday said the National Assembly has the power to tinker with the budget.
In his speech during the presentation of N4.92 trillion 2013 Budget to the joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives, Mark told President Goodluck Jonathan that lawmakers are constitutionally empowered to make input into the budget.
The Constitution, he said, did not intend to turn the National Assembly into a mere mechanical rubber-stamp that must robotically pass budget estimates as presented.
Mark said the country’s budgets, from his experience since 1999, have been dogged by three main areas of controversies.
These are the time of presentation of the estimates to the National Assembly, whether the National Assembly has the constitutional power to make inputs into the budget estimates and implementation of the budget.
On the time of presentation, he said it was gratifying that the 2013 Budget was presented in October.
He said: “Yet, Mr. President, a compelling case can still be made for a consistently earlier presentation.
“This will allow for a meticulous and exhaustive consideration and debate and ensure that we work towards passing it before the end of the year.”
On the power to make inputs into Appropriation Bills, Mark said: “Our stand is that parliament is constitutionally empowered to make inputs.
“What the Constitution enjoins Mr. President to lay before the National Assembly are mere estimates, not immutable figures.”
Mark added that once the estimates are laid, their consideration “becomes subject to the constitutionally prescribed modes of exercising legislative power”.
He added: “Therefore, we do not think that the Constitution intended to turn the National Assembly into a mere mechanical rubber-stamp that must robotically pass budget estimates as presented.
“However, in exercising this constitutional power, we will be mindful of the fact that the social and economic challenges currently besetting our nation are the severest in our contemporary history. The National Assembly is also conscious of the fact that urgent steps need to be taken to address our dire infrastructural challenges.”
On implementation, he said the lawmakers believed that so long as the budgets are only partially implemented, “the full benefits of your administration’s economic policies may not be accomplished”.
He said when the 2013 Appropriation Bill becomes law, the National Assembly would deploy its weapon of oversight, more than ever before, to ensure accountability, probity, transparency and full implementation.
The need to ensure the efficient utilisation of public finance for the promotion of the public good, he said, would be the National Assembly’s guiding principle.
The Assembly, he said, would work to ensure that the lofty developmental goals embedded in the budget are fully realised.
Mark said a nation’s budget, covers the administration’s economic and social vision and the practical means of attaining it.
The presentation of the budget, he said, carried profound social and economic implications for the nation.
Mark said effort should be made to make the country’s economy conform to global best practices.
He said: “Experience has shown that the most virile economies are private sector driven.
“We advise that we continue to follow this time tested economic philosophy. It is important to ensure that the 2013 Budget appropriately regulates the compass of the national economy and confronts our various economic, political and social challenges.
“Our budgets tend to incorporate every conceivable project, including even those that Local Governments are better positioned to execute. I advise that we depart from this practice and target projects that are realistically attainable with defined mechanisms for implementation and easy monitoring.”
Mark assured Jonathan of the constructive collaboration of the National Assembly, within the context of the principle of separation of powers, “as your administration continues to steer the ship of State towards the shores of national transformation.”
