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Tag: 2016 Appropriation Bill

  • 2016 budget expires May 5, says Senate

    2016 budget expires May 5, says Senate

    The 2016 budget will expire midnight May 5, 2017, it was learnt Monday.

    Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje, made the clarification to reporters in Abuja.

    Senator Goje who quoted from the Appropriation Act noted that “In line with the provision of Section 318 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) the bill (2016 Appropriation Bill) will run for a course of 12 months starting from the date it is assented into law.”

    The Gombe Central lawmaker said that since the 2016 Appropriation Bill was assented to on May 6th 2016, it would expire at midnight May 5th, 2017.

    He said that the clarification became necessary following questions about the status of the 2016 budget.

    He noted that the National Assembly carefully created the clause to foreclose any unnecessary anxiety about the duration of the 2016 budget.

    Senator Goje said, “As far as the bill that was signed into law by Mr. President is concerned, there will be no mop up on 31st March 2017 since the validity period for the 2016 budget is midnight May 5th, 2017. If that is done, it will be a violation of the Act. We carefully created the clause that made provision for May 5,th 2017. The Act says that the 2016 budget will run for 12 months starting from the date the bill was assented to and it was assented to on May 6th 2016.

    The lawmaker assured that before the life of the 2016 budget expires, the 2017 budget would have been passed by the National Assembly.

    He said, “It is necessary for Nigerians to know that there should be no anxiety about mop up of funds by March 31st. We do not have to extend the 2016 budget. If May comes and there is need to extend, then we can do otherwise. I believe before that date the 2017 budget must have been passed. We don’t have to do any extension because we have taken care of that. Therefore no anxiety, no mopping up of funds before 12 months period.”

     

  • Due process stalling release of N350 billion – Minister

    The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma on Wednesday said that Due Process is mainly working against the release of N350 billion planned to reflate the Nigeria economy.

    Before the 2016 Appropriation bill was assented into law, the government had announced its plans to inject the money into the economy.

    But speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, Udoma said that there is now need to fast track the processes hindering the releases.

    He was accompanied to the briefing by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed.

    According to him, Nigerians will start to feel the impact of the 2016 Budget from the 3rd quarter of this year.

    The Minister also disclosed that Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have been urged in Council to fast-track the processes for the capital budgets in order to quickly reflate the economy.

    He said: “As far as the N350 billion which was indicated, the money is available but there is a process and this is part of the reasons we briefed council and there is need to fast track those processes so that very soon most of those monies will be released. We expect in the Ministry of works, they should have quite substantial release in the next week or so.

    “It’s easier for us for existing projects but new projects are a bit more difficult because of the public procurement. The public procurement you have to advertise and you have to wait for six weeks and so on. So new project will take a bit longer.

    “But existing projects that have already gone through the public procurement process‎ will be faster and I believe that you will soon start seeing the impact of those releases.” He said

    On whether no kobo has been released from the N350 billion, he said: “I didn’t say that but I said you will be seeing a lot more releases.”

    Asked further to disclose the level of release, he said: “I think what we will probably do is ‎because that wasn’t part of what council discussed, so what we will do we will be giving numbers from time to time. So I’m sure within the week we should be able to give you numbers.”

    On the recession hinted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the alleged absent of plans to put Nigeria back on the path of growth, he said: “Let me speak on not having a plan. We launched a strategic document, we ‎set out 34 things we want to achieve this year, we set out all our objectives. We have a plan and the plan is to reflate the economy.

    According to him, what has happen to Nigeria was not a surprise to the government.

    “It is something that we came in to meet, it has been caused by the fall of crude oil prices from over $100 to less than $30 and so we came in to meet that problem.

    “The decision that we took to address that problem is to reflate the economy and the budget was aimed to achieve that and that is why you have in the budget a plan to spend a large amount of money on infrastructure but as you know the budget was only recently passed.

    “It takes time for the spending to be release and to hit the economy and to begin to see the impact. So we have a plan, we know the situation we are in right now and we have a plan to get out of the situation.”

    He added: “It is just that at this particular point in time we expected this trajectory because the releases will only start kicking in so that by the third quarter we will start seeing the impact of what we are doing to reflate the economy.”

    He said that the banking and the private sector were advised not to lay off staff due to the current circumstances because things will soon pick up.

    He said: “With regards to the plea to the private sector, it is because we know that by the time the economy picks up, they will need those people again‎. We know the economy is going to pick up we are confident about that, that is because of our plan; the plan was conceived because we knew that this was the trajectory we will move into.

    “I will give you an indication of some of those things in the plan, for agriculture for instance, we plan to be self-sufficient in rice within a certain number of years in rice, in wheat within a certain number of years. Indeed the Vice President has just set up a task force headed by ‎the governor of Kebbi State to realise that. So we are implementing the plan one by one.

    “We have a plan to move this country up 20 places in the ease of doing business, we are working on that, we want to stimulate the private sector because we know that even the spending by government alone will not be sufficient, we also need to have policies that will encourage the private sector. We do have a plan, it was launched, it was taken to cabinet, approved by cabinet and the minister of state had announced,” he stated

    The Minister also denied the speculation of impending sack of workers in para-military organizations.

    “That is news to me, I am not aware of any instruction to anybody to sack anybody, in fact the policy of this government, we said so at the beginning that we are not going to retrench, there is a natural wastage which happens in government, there are people who retire, people who may be disciplined but there is no policy in this government to retrench. So I want to disabuse your mind that there is no such policy,” he said.

  • Niger Assembly passes 2016 Appropriation Bill

    Niger Assembly passes 2016 Appropriation Bill

    The Niger State House of Assembly Friday passed the 2016 appropriation bill with an increment of N10.3 billion to the total expenditure provision of the budget.

    The budget presented to the House of Assembly by the state governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello was N74.7 billion while the budget appropriated by the House is N85 billion.

    An estimated expenditure of N74,744,151,131 made up of  N39,501,796,081 as the recurrent expenditure and N35,242,355,032  as the capital expenditure was proposed for consideration and approval while the House recommended an expenditure of N85,092,122,133 made up of recurrent expenditure of N41, 433,666,593 and capital expenditure of N43,658,455,540.

    Giving reasons for the increment, the Chairman of the Committee on Planning and Appropriation, Honorable Muhammad Lokogoma said that the committee critically looked into various sources of revenue and discovered that there are areas of improvement in the Internally Generated Revenue.

    He said that additional N10 million can be generated from NSTA, N3 million can be generated from city metro bus service, N6 million can be generated from Mining activities in the state, N5 million can be generated from the water board and N35 million from Telecom Mast and New mast clearance form.

    Lokogoma also said that out of N100 billion withdrwan from the consolidated revenue account, N50 billion has been verified to be unaccounted for stating that the sum of N15.7 billion is recommended for IGR as against the N9.3 billion projected.

    The Committee then observed with dismay the over expenditure and extra-budgetary expenditure in the 2015 budget without recourse to the legislature adding that that will not be tolerated in the 2016 budget as all MDAs are to make quarterly presentations to the House.

    The House then called on the executive to ensure that budgets are presented to the legislature early to ensure proper scrutiny and timely passage adding that the submission resulted in hasty scrutiny to ensure speedy passage.

    The Speaker of the Niger state House of Assembly, Rt. Honorable Ahmed Marafa after the passage of the bill said that the budget was seriously scrutinized page by page and sector by sector to give Nigerlites a budget that they can be proud of.

    He then directed the clerk to prepare copies and passed to the governor for his assent.

  • Saraki’s position on 2016 Appropriation Bill

    Saraki’s position on 2016 Appropriation Bill

    The Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki on Tuesday posted his comments on the 2016 Appropriation Bill after the Plenary.

    On Oil:
    “For the first time in the history of our great nation, 77% of our expected revenue is non-oil based. This represents a great foundation for the future.”

    On Borrowing:
    “In general summary, we were all leaning towards the fact that it is not the amount that we borrow that matters, but the projects that the money is used for. Right now – as a percentage of GDP – we are still within the limits and parameters of fiscal responsibility.”

    On Economic Diversification:
    “A lot of Senators raised observations on the fact that in the allocations to the agricultural and mineral resources sectors, the message of economic diversification was not particularly reflected. Those are the areas that we should look into.”

    On Wastage:
    “Based on our experiences in the past, we have talked about not playing the blame game. However, the issue of blocking all loopholes and leakages is key. Hence, we must pay attention to the present, to address the potential for leakages in the future.”

    On the Role of the Legislature:
    “The Executive has played its role; it is time that we as the legislature do our part.”

    On Revenue Benchmarks:
    “The issue of revenue estimates must be gotten right particularly by the Finance and Petroleum Committees. The committees must particularly scrutinize this budget so that at the end of the day we can all be proud of it.”

    On Zero-Based Budgeting:
    “The Zero Budgeting means that projects will be critically assessed to go across all zones.”

    On Legislative Malpractice in the Budgeting Process:
    “Let me make this categorically clear: there will be no room for money-for-budget in the 2016 appropriations process as sanctions will be taken. We will ensure to report all inconsistencies to the relevant agencies of the executive branch.”

  • Ganduje presents N274.824b as 2016 Appropriation Bill

    Ganduje presents N274.824b as 2016 Appropriation Bill

    Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje yesterday presented the 2016 Appropriation Bill, tagged: Budget for Self-Reliance, comprising N274,824,600,378 billion.

    The Appropriation Bill has a capital expenditure of N191,552,889,552,889,518, which is higher than that of 2015 budget by N55,940,931,633 billion, to be financed by N74,138,821,209 billion expected from recurrent revenue surplus and capital receipts of N117,414,068,309 billion.

    The recurrent expenditure was put at N157,410,532,069 billion, consisting of N60 billion Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and N97,410,532,069 revenue from the Federation Account.

    The governor said the recurrent revenue is higher than that of 2015 with N43,527,382,589 billion by 28 per cent.

    He said: “This will be made possible with the current reform in the Board of Internally Revenue and the engagement of consultants, which will provide us with better strategies and new ideas of revenue collections.”

     

    At the presentation of the Appropriation Bill to the House of Assembly, Ganduje said his administration was determined to boost infrastructural development, adding that this explained why the Infrastructure sector carried the highest allocation with N64.39 billion.

    He said: “Out of this allocation, N7.3 billion is for the conversion of Plaza Cinema to a multi-storey car park, an overpass to link Kantin Kwari Market, general rehabilitation of the market and provision of new stalls and modern collapsible stalls, minor and major works, constituency projects, renovation of Audu Bako secretariat, establishment of ultra-modern integrated skills and acquisition centre in the state.”

    Urban and Regional Development is allocated N44.1 billion, while Education has N23.65 billion, followed by Health with N13.7 billion allocation.

    Water and rural development is allocated N13.3 billion., agriculture, N7.5 billion, Commerce and Industry, N647 million, women development, N937 million, information, N1.2 billion, environment, N2.18 billion, judiciary, N1.25 billion and Information, N1.2 billion.

    Ganduje, however, warned that his government will not condone indiscipline and corruption as he is determined to ensure that Kano state and its people get the needed democratic dividends.

    While receiving the 2016 Appropriation Bill, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Hon. Kabiru Alhasan Rurum assured the Governor that the budget is safe and in good hands, adding that in conformity with international best legislative practice, the House will conduct a public hearing with inputs from civil society organizations and members of the public and all critical stakeholders before the budget is passed into law.