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Tag: budget

  • ‘Lagosians should make input into budget’

    The Chief Whip of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Rotimi Abiru, has called on the people to make inputs into next year’s budget.

    The lawmaker, who spoke during a parley with stakeholders at the Bariga Local Council Development Area (LCDA) Secretariat, enjoined residents to support the government.

    He explained that the fundamental objectives of the meeting was to brief constituents on the activities of the House in the last one year, stressing that information from participants on the peculiar security problem will assist the government.

    Abiru said the requests made by residents at the parley were given considerable attention by the government, especially in the area of infrastructural development across the state in the 2016 budget.

    He said: “I wish to state that, it is in our determination to give meaning to good representation and good governance that we have come again with the second edition of the stakeholders’ meeting, which will enable us sit together to brief you on our activities in the last one year.

    “We submitted the collated complaints and requests of our constituencies to Governor Akinwumi Ambode for executive action. I’m pleased to inform you, that the report has been receiving the attention of the Governor and part of your requests and our recommendations are being implemented across the State.”

    “In line with the policy of the State government of inclusive governance, the process leading to 2017 budget commenced with the yearly budget consultative forum, which provided an avenue for citizens and residents of the State in the three.  Senatorial Districts to make inputs into the budget. MDAs are enjoined to incorporate these inputs into their budget proposals. In addition, members of the Lagos State House of Assembly held constituency stakeholders’ meeting across the 40 constituencies of our State and the reports are equally available as inputs into 2017 budgets.”

    The Chief Whip, who acknowledged complaints, requests and pieces of advice to government from participants, promised to channel them to the appropriate authority.

    Abiru said he appreciated all the encommium showered on him by the constituents, noting that it will encourage him to do more for the people at the Lagos House. He said the issues raised at the interactive meeting will form the basis of next year’s budget.

  • Lagos Assembly re-orders 2016 Budget by N44.9b

    Lagos State House of Assembly yesterday re-ordered the 2016 budget by N44.9billion at the instance of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.

    Details shows that re-ordering from Capital Expenditure is N21.9 billion, that of Recurrent Expenditure is N23b, totalling N44.9billion.

    Re-ordering were drawn from some Ministries, Department and Agencies MDAs, and pumped into other MDAs that needed funds for critical projects

    The total Capital Expenditure for the budget is now N404.3billion, Recurrent Expenditure, N258.2billion. bringing the total to N662.6 billion

    Ambode’s letter to the Assembly, requesting for the re-ordering was read  on September 6, It was passed to the House Committee on Economic Planning and Budget for scrutiny.

    In his letter, Ambode said  the re-ordering is to “enhance efficient delivery of services and world class infrastructure to the people of the state”.

    The objectives of the re-ordering as contained in the commitee’s report which was adopted by the House include: rehabilitation of hospitals; relocation of the Milke 12 Market; continuous delivery of light-up Lagos initiative; up-scaling of road construction and rehabilitation to ensure connectivity; maintaining fiscal strategy and sustaining expenditure profiles, improving capital expenditure ratio to 61:39 from from its present 50:50, completion of the first phase re-modelling of the Emergency Response System an upgrading of facilities at Cappa and Ikeja Command centres.

  • Budget padding: SERAP asks court to compel EFCC to investigate Dogara, others

    As the National Assembly resumes on Monday, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has asked the federal high court in Abuja for an order to compel the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate and prosecute allegations of budget padding and abuse of office leveled against the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara.
    The suit with number FHC/ABJ/CS/733/16 dated September 15, 2016 was filed on behalf of SERAP by its Solicitor Femi Falana(SAN).
    It was filed pursuant to Order 34, Rules 1 (1) (A); 2, Rule 3 (1) and (2) (A), (B) and (C) of the Federal High Court Rules, 2009 and the inherent jurisdiction of the Honourable Court.
    Others who SERAP want the EFCC to investigate include the Deputy Speaker, Yussuff Lasun; the Minority Leader, Leo Ogor; and the Chief Whip, Hassan Ado Doguwa.”
    SERAP, in the suit, is seeking two reliefs from the court against EFCC.
    The organization is seeking a declaration that the failure of the respondent (EFCC) to investigate allegations of budget padding and abuse of office leveled against Dogara, Lasun, Ogor; and Ado is illegal and unconstitutional as it violates Section 6 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act, 2004.
    The organisation is also asking the court for an order of mandamus compelling the respondent to investigate allegations of budget padding and abuse of office leveled against Dogara and others.
    In the affidavit in support of its prayer to the court for an order of mandamus SERAP stated that the suit was borne out of the fact that it is the statutory responsibility of the EFCC to investigate and prosecute financial crimes in the country and that unnless the reliefs sought are granted, the EFCC will not investigate the Speaker of the House of Representatives and others for alleged grave financial and economic crimes.
    “This matter is presently generating a lot of public concern and discourse and is presently in the front burner of national discourse thus germane to Nigerians. By the nature of the case, it ought to be heard urgently. It is in the interest of justice to hear this matter expeditiously.”

  • Budget: Reps plot Jibrin’s suspension as House resumes

    Budget: Reps plot Jibrin’s suspension as House resumes

    The real fireworks between the sacked chairman of the House of Representatives committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, and the leadership of the House over alleged padding of the 2016 budget  are about to start.

    The Green Chamber which proceeded on recess in July soon after Jibrin spilled the beans on the issue is scheduled to resume on Tuesday, September 20 with the House leadership poised to send Jibrin on suspension.

    The sacked committee chairman yesterday issued a last minute rally call to woo more Reps to his side in the stand-off with Speaker    Yakubu Dogara, Deputy Speaker Yussuff Lasun, Whip Alhassan Doguwa, Minority leader Leo Ogor and nine Committee Chairmen.

    He had accused them of padding the 2016 budget with fictitious projects running to over N284b.

    He also claimed that most members of the House diverted N10b in running cost that was not part of their salaries over the years.

    They have all dismissed the allegations as baseless and are believed to be pressing for sanction against him.

    Sources said yesterday that the House leadership has been busy working on how best to handle Jibrin so that he might not turn out to be a hero.

    For now the plan is to allow Jibrin run himself to the ground by giving him a free hand to roam the floor of the chamber as he may wish.

    For his part, Jibrin wrote a 17-page letter to every member of the House on why Speaker Dogara should be asked to step down.

    This, according to him, will pave the way for a comprehensive and unhindered investigation of the allegations of budget padding.

    He also asked for a comprehensive review of the House rules which he said Dogara has manipulated by inserting draconian laws.

    He said: “The truth of the matter is that I stood against corruption. I stood against budget fraud. The Speaker and the three principal officers saw me as a stumbling block to a free flow of corruption and budget fraud. They desperately wanted me out.

    “That is why despite the fact that I told him of my decision to resign, from his pronouncement, he had wished he fired me. I have stated repeatedly that I did nothing wrong in the 2016 budget, I did not abuse my office or corruptly enrich myself in the five years I have been in the House. I have stated repeatedly that anybody that has an allegation against me in that regard should feel free and bring it up.

    “The pronouncement of my questionable “sack” on the floor was immediately followed by a heavy campaign of calumny in the media spreading falsehood against my person and family sponsored by Speaker Dogara and in several instances using the House spokesperson and later his spokesman until some patriotic members called the House spokesperson to order.

    “But that was a joke compared to what followed after the close of session on Thursday, July 21, 2016. The plan is to execute my “sack” just before the recess so that by the time we return I would have been buried and the issue forgotten. I promised Mr. Speaker on July 21st that this issue will never be swept under the carpet.”

    However, a National Assembly source, who pleaded anonymity, said Jibrin is in for a ‘rude shock’ when the House resumes.

    According to her, contrary to what the embattled lawmaker believes that he has the support of majority of his colleagues in his drive to expose corruption in the House, Jibrin would end up being alone at the end.

    She said: “I want to assure you that by the time the House resumes on Tuesday, Jibrin will look behind and find out that he is alone.

    “Yes, he might think that this false anti-corruption garb he is now wearing is going to endear him to Nigerians, but he will be shocked by the time he discovers that no one would take him serious any longer, when all the facts about him are laid on the table.

    “This is because Nigerians are not gullible to the extent that they won’t ask why did he not make noise about corruption in the House since the last Assembly when he was privileged to chair an important committee like Finance.

    “That aside, the leadership will not allow one individual to bring down the House just because he is aggrieved for being removed as a Committee chairman.

    “The strategy is to ensure that he is left with no opportunity to embarrass the Speaker and the entire House.

    “In my view, the best way to ensure this is to suspend him and I think that is what is going to happen, except for a last minute change.

    “We have heard from the grapevine that his intention is to constitute himself into a nuisance from the first day thereby causing commotion on the floor.

    “Being an attention seeker, he is well aware that the cameras would always zoom on him while in the Chamber, so he is going to maximise that by suspension as House resumes raising all kinds of point of order.

    “We are not going to allow that to happen because he is just an individual that wants to bring the entire House down with him.

    “I can assure you that the letter he wrote to members was just self seeking. Whatever he wanted the letter to achieve has failed because he has also brought the entire members into the fray by accusing them of diverting the running cost.

    “At any rate, why would he need to write every member if his fight was sincere in the first place?

    “In a situation like this, your action is all that is needed to garner support on your side if you are fighting a just cause, it is supposed to be spontaneous.

    “But in his case, he is just struggling to win the support of his colleagues that he has rubbished before Nigerians. That cannot work.

    “There is no anxiety, we have also perfected our plans but ours is dependent on how he conducts himself.”

    However, a member of Integrity Group said they were still studying the content of Jibrin’s letter.

    He said the issues raised by Jibrin were serious enough to be investigated by external bodies but would not want the House to lose its integrity with Nigerians.

    “We are not going to rush into what the Jibrin’s letter is asking of us. We are studying the situation and will only do what is right for this institution.

    “If you recall, we made it clear before Jibrin’s removal that the Speaker should allow us question the wisdom behind Jibrin’s behaviour over the budget but we were turned down.

    “Now that the story has changed, no one should be of the opinion that we are behind or sponsoring Jibrin, all we are doing is to get things right.

    “Jibrin cannot tell us what to do, we know what is good for us and what is good for this institution,” he said.

  • How to clean up budget process, by Jibrin

    How to clean up budget process, by Jibrin

    Ousted Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin ( APC, Kano ) has said  transparency in the nation’s budgeting process is the only means to avoid manipulations and padding of the document.

    Jibrin, in a statement yesterday said e – parliament, one of the key points on the Legislative Agenda of Speaker Yakubu Dogara is the an effective way of making the budget process responsive.

    Among other factors he listed,  Jibrin said e – parliament would allow Nigerian to follow the due process.

    The statement reads: “The most important reform here is to ensure that budget estimates and details are returned to the floor of the House at the same time for passage.

    “This will check the fraudulent insertions by some standing Committee Chairmen and Principal Officers in the process of budget passage.

    “It is such gap that allowed Speaker Dogara, Lasun, Doguwa, Leo Ogor and few other committee Chairmen to perpetrate such monumental fraud in the 2016 budget.

    “On the mismanagement of the internal budget of the House, the most important reform the House must embark on immediately is to ensure that the internal budget of the House must be circulated to members and made public so that Nigerians can see the expenditure of its elected officials.

    “The running cost of members must be adjusted to a reasonable amount and made public but most importantly, the administration of the running cost must not be exposed to abuses as presently obtained.

    “If these measures are carried out, we will not see such secrecy in running cost and monumental fraud in the management of the finances of the House and award of fraudulent and fictitious contracts under the watch of Speaker Dogara and the Chairman Houses services, Babanle Ila.

  • Budget padding and its challenges

    Until disloyalty to the nation and the conspiracy against their constituencies which brought them together ripped them apart two weeks back, Speaker Dogara, and his estranged friend, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, the former chairman, Appropriation Committee and the majority of the house members justified ‘budget padding’ by appealing to the provision of Sections 3, 24 and 30 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act.  But that for many could only have been self-serving because the law on the public budgetary process is very clear. The motive of their framers is unmistakable and their logic, sound and unassailable. To the extent that a government budget is the political tool with which government in power fulfils its electoral promises to the electorate, the major actor in budget preparation is the executive. Other actors in the budgetary process have their specific roles clearly spelt out. The legislature debates, examines and authorizes spending of public revenue and to avoid any ambiguity, areas of joint cooperation between it and the executive are clearly listed to include implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. To protect the interest of their constituencies, the legislature like all other actors such as NGOs, pressure groups and international donors are expected to lobby the executive at the budget preparatory stage.

    Padding of the budget especially after the second reading is therefore a criminal act. Unfortunately, that seems to be what has been going on since the beginning of the fourth republic. When last May, the bubble first burst following the alarm raised by the ministers in charge of health and transport about the padding of the budget they submitted, the President refused   to append his signature. He was however blackmailed by the lawmakers and their apologists who accused him of insensitivity to the plight of the public that will suffer from his refusal to play politics and accommodate the excesses of the lawmakers.

    But as it is often said, ‘there is no perfect crime’. Two weeks ago, Jibrin’s swift reaction to his removal as chairman of the Appropriation Committee following a claim he ‘unilaterally padded the 2016 budget to the tune of N4.1 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency in Kano State’,  was to attribute his travails to his ‘inability to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers’. He went on  to add that that the Speaker did not only divert a federal government water project to his farm but that he blackmailed an unnamed construction company to work on his Asokoro new mansion.

    Last week, a civil society group, SERAP lodged a petition against Dogara and his men at the UN claiming ‘removal of critical projects and replacement of such projects with constituency projects, not only undermined the fight against corruption in the country, but also exacerbated extreme poverty’ of the same people on whose behalf Dogara and his House members pretended to fight. We have also now  learnt that about N350b appropriated by the National Assembly in respect of about 2,516 projects spread across the country in the last five years never took off even after full payment had been made. On July 17, this newspaper in a piece titled “Constituency Projects – a ritual of monumental waste”, listed on pages 9, 10 and 11, 211 abandoned budgets. It was the result of a survey of 436 projects spread across 16 states of the federation by a Civic Technology Organisation-BudgIT. Some of these projects include water bore-holes, rural electricity and roads projects and primary health centres designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor.

    This monumental fraud at the National Assembly is replicated in all the 36 states in the country where governors in most cases operate like sole administrators with state assemblies serving as rubber stamps. The 774 LGAs are not different. The local council chairmen who collect free allocation from Abuja are answerable to no one. The councilors many of who have been known to build houses within a year in office cornered the available road and culvert contracts that get washed away if and when implemented after one rainy season because of usage of substandard materials.

    Budget padding like some of our other crises of nationhood as many well informed Nigerians have told us is closely tied to our unwieldy and unworkable structure. This however is a fact those who are benefitting from the current anarchy including our over 400 highly paid lawmakers currently engaged in budget padding in Abuja and other parasitic politicians at the state and local council levels are ready to deny.

    Close  to a century after  the warning by the colonial masters that  we must as a multi-ethnic society with diverse cultures ‘allow groups to develop at their own pace without interference from others’, we have continued to play the ostrich. Sixty years after the collapse of the structure we inherited from our founding fathers, no Nigeria leader has been able to properly articulate our crisis of nationhood. But if we don’t know where we are going, we at least know where we are coming from. And this was exactly what Professor Banji Akintoye, a world celebrated historian tried to do in a recent lecture he delivered in Ibadan to celebrate the past peaceful co-existence of our various nationalities.

    In terms of world view, the Yoruba according to him has as its core value, ‘welfarism’. In most Yoruba towns, age groups engage in communal cooperative endeavours known locally as aaro whereby they jointly help their members to construct houses in turns. Women according to Prof Akintoye had their equivalent of aaro.

    What Awo and his group of Yoruba educated elite did, we now know, was to build on this core values. Free education was anything but free. Adult Yoruba who used to escape to the forest at the approach of tax collectors were heavily taxed whether they had children or not. Cocoa farmers were equally taxed through the marketing boards. The proceeds were used to prosecute free education and send brilliant western Nigeria youths to the best universities in the world. They built shoe, tyre, beverages and vegetable industries to add value to the farm produce of their farmers. They modernized the aaro concept with the establishment to housing estates and to cater for the taste of an emergent middle class. Of course, Ahmadu Bellow built on the values of his own people to establish the NNDC as the biggest business conglomerate in Africa, ABU and ‘one north one people’ where Christians, Muslims and various ethnic groups in the north coexisted peacefully.

    Sine no one deliberately sets out to destroy his father’s house, budget padding by elected legislators can only signify lack of faith in Nigeria. Unfortunately self-serving opponents of restructuring are not even prepared to appreciate that the whole essence of a federal arrangement is to make individuals and groups remain proud members of their small group within the greater nation.

    If I were an adviser to President Buhari who is currently seeking extra emergency powers, to tackle the nation’s economic problems, I will suggest he  ‘seeks first the of kingdom of politics’ as Nkrumah once admonished by leveraging on the trust he enjoys among Nigerians and use the unique opportunity he today has to undo what his colleagues – the ill-informed military adventurers did by restoring our beautiful country back to a workable, productive, and competitive federal arrangement that once made Nigeria a reference point as world greatest exporter of groundnut and palm oil, the country with the best bureaucracy in Africa, with the first television in Africa and with UCH Ibadan, as one of the best three teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth of Nations.

  • Fed Govt slashes CBN’s budget by 50%

    Fed Govt slashes CBN’s budget by 50%

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday said the Federal Government has slashed its budget  by 50 per cent, lamenting that the development has seriously affected its capabilities to fund some financial system initiatives.

    Its Director of the Financial System Stability (FSS 2020), Mr Mohammed Suleiman who spoke when members of the FSS 2020 visited the the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) in Abuja, lamented that funding has been a major issue. He said: “The FSS 2020 programme since its inception has always been bankrolled single handedly by the CBN; the CBN is beginning to weary a little bit because the current budget this year was reduced by 50 per cent and that is majorly affecting some of our capabilities to implement some of these strategic objectives.”

    Suleiman lamented that 50 per cent of the budget cut is no small measure at all. “We need to agree on the funding approach, we need to have a rethink and get the support of all implementing institutions. The FSS2020 is not a CBN project it is a financial system project, all financial system players have to take ownership of the project and be willing to support it,” he said.

    During the exchange of views on the way to move the FS2020 project forward, an official of the NDIC said it costs about N198 billion to fund the FSS2020 project.

    Suleiman said: “We will structure the FSS2020 to include dedicated team for monitoring, tracking and reporting and ensure regular quarterly or biannual meeting of stakeholders for the progress and implementation of the strategy.”

    He identified some of the challenges the FSS2020 team have had to grapple with to include inadequate financial skills development particularly in the capital market; unavailability of funds for long term financial products; non existence of listing rules for special purpose vehicles (SPVs); increasing cost of transactions and operations and weak risk management.

    Other challenges include low level of card usage on point of sale (PoS) terminals and high  automated teller machine (ATM) usage for cash transactions; physical insecurities and prevalence of financial fraud; low levels of financial literacy and inclusion; low acceptability of mobile payment and merchant locations; non existence of sound collateral management; inadequate legal and regulatory framework for commodities market and unwillingness of private companies to go public; inadequate foreign direct investment and non existence of integrated credit scoring system.

    To ensure that the FSS2020 project does not fail because of lack of funds, Suleiman said the intervention is to advocate that agencies making budgetary provisions provide funds for development because these products need the support of budget to implement them.

    He also expressed concern that Nigeria does not “have the required skills for the products. We need to build the capacity of the industry, we have started capacity building at Woodpecker for heads of strategy of implementing institutions who were in attendance at Golden Tulip in Lagos recently.”

    According to him, the programme “cost the CBN £144,000 because facilitators were brought in from United Kingdom. We will also build capacities in the bonds markets and derivatives.”

  • Jibrin links Omisore to House budget padding controversy

    Jibrin links Omisore to House budget padding controversy

    Embattled former House of Representatives Appropriation Committee Chairman Abdulmumin Jibrin has linked Senator Iyiola Omisore with the budget padding controversy.

    Omisore, who represented Osun East, was the chairman of the seventh Senate’s Appropriation Committee.

    In a letter to All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun in which he urged him to advise House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara to resign, Jibrin alleged an unholy alliance between Dogara and Omisore.

    In the letter, dated August 12, Jibrin said Dogara’s exit would enable the House “nominate a Speaker Pro Tempore and mobilise our members to support him to take over and adjourn the House until when we are due for resumption in September”.

    “This will give room for consultations on the election of a new Speaker when we resume,” he said.

    He urged the party “to discuss on the possibility of returning the N100 billion constituency component of the budget under any of our laws so that all stolen money can be returned, particularly the N40 billion naira and equitably distributed to all constituencies.”

    The office of the speaker declined to react to Jibrin’s letter yesterday.

    On Omisore’s role, he said: “His godfather is Senator Iyiola Omisore. During the build up to the appointment of committee chairmen, I had a terrible disagreement with him (Dogara). While in  London, before the appointment of committee chairmen, Jibrin claimed that Dogara “pleaded with me to join him at a house in London. I went and I saw him seated very comfortably with Senator Omisore. It was there he said he was going to appoint me as chairman, Appropriations and I should be reporting to Omisore

    “I was completely shocked. A nice lunch was served; we ate and we left. At least, there are CCTVs in London. I confided in a highly-placed person who I wouldn’t want to mention his name. He advised me to remain calm and concentrate on my job. My refusal to comply with such questionable instructions largely accounted for the anger of Mr. Speaker towards me.

    “It was much later that I realised that Senator Omisore had adopted Speaker Dogara as a godson since their days as Chairman Appropriations and House Services in the sixth Assembly respectively.”

    Jibrin also accused Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal of not supporting his appointment as Appropriations Committee chairman.

    Jibrin said Dogara was “more interested in telling me about the forces who didn’t want me to be appointed chairman, appropriations as if I cared. He mentioned former Speaker and present Governor of Sokoto State Aminu Waziri Tambuwal as one. That is how narrow-minded Dogara can be.”

  • The criminality of budget padding

    Last week, Honourable Yakubu Dogara, the Speaker of the House of Representatives arrogantly maintained that he would not subject himself to the investigation being conducted by both the Nigeria Police Force and the Economic and Financial Commission. As far as he is concerned, he enjoys immunity under the provisions of the Legislative Houses Powers and Privileges Act. The embattled Speaker also claimed that the padding of the 2016 is not a criminal offence. Honourable Dogara’s confidence is likely to have been anchored on the statement credited to the Presidency that the budget was not padded in any material particular.

    Before then, the All Progressive Congress had decided to follow the discredited path of the Peoples Democratic Party by treating the serious allegation of monumental corruption  as a “family affair’’ of the ruling party. But unlike the PDP, the party failed to act timeously. In other words, a cover up is no longer possible at this stage as the cat has been let out of the bag.  For now, Honourable Dogara has no choice but to defend the criminal allegations. Contrary to his misleading contention, the Legislative Houses Powers and Privileges Act has not conferred immunity on him with respect to allegations of criminal offences. Since the immunity conferred by the Act is limited to contributions to debates by members of the National Assembly the Speaker cannot ward off the invitation of the Police and the EFCC to react to the criminal allegations levelled against him by Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin.

    The Speaker  ensured that Honourable Jibrin was removed as the chairman of the Appropriation Committee of the House when it was confirmed by the House that he had allocated projects worth N4 billion to his constituency. The House kicked against Jibrin on the ground that the remaining 359 members have been left to share the remaining N36 billion out of N40 billion. While not denying the allegation, Honourable Jibrin disclosed that the Speaker and some principal officers had unilaterally inserted 2,000 items, otherwise called constituency budgets in the budget. He also accused the Speaker of corrupt enrichment through the acquisition of farms and other properties. Although the Speaker has failed to deny the serious allegations, he has threatened to sue Honourable Jibrin for defaming him.

    It would be recalled that the initial budget was withdrawn by President Buhari when the National Assembly members accused some top civil servants of padding the 2016 budget. It was so scandalous that the federal government undertook to sanction the public officers who had altered the budget. At that juncture, the President promptly removed the illegal insertions and resent the corrected budget to both chambers of the parliament. Thereafter, the budget was debated and passed and sent to the President for his assent.  It was signed into law by President Buhari when he believed that it had been properly passed by the members of the National Assembly.

    But it has now emerged that about 20 legislators in both chambers of the National Assembly altered the budget by inserting constituency projects worth N100 billion in the Appropriation Bill. Both the Senate and the House allocated to themselves N60 billion and N4o billion respectively. If it is established that the alterations were effected after the passing of the budget by both houses, the issue at hand goes beyond padding. A clear case of conspiracy, fraud, forgery and corruption can be established against the suspects.

    Padding takes place when legislators resolve to rewrite the budget by introducing new items outside the estimates prepared and presented to them by the President. The controversy over the padding of budget was laid to rest with the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 which has imposed a duty on the finance minister to source input from certain institutions including the National Assembly during the course of preparing the budget. That is when negotiations and horse trading with the executive by the legislators is allowed.  But neither the Constitution nor the Fiscal Responsibility Act has empowered the National Assembly members to rewrite the national budget by including constituency projects whose costs are arbitrarily fixed by the legislators.

    Under section 81 of the Constitution, the President is given the exclusive power to cause the budget to be prepared.  Upon the preparation of the budget by the executive, it shall be laid or presented to the National Assembly by the President. In debating the Appropriation Bill, the legislators may reduce the estimates if there are errors or inflation of the cost of items or if certain items provided for has been purchased before or for any other genuine reasons. But the National Assembly cannot increase the budget in any manner whatsoever.  So the unilateral introduction of constituency projects is totally illegal and unconstitutional.

    By introducing new items, the National Assembly has usurped the powers of the President to prepare the budget. In other words, the legislators would have prepared the budget and laid it before themselves and then passed it.  That is a negation of the doctrine of separation of powers. The appropriation bill or amended appropriation bill is not like other bills. Whereas other bills shall emanate from either of the two houses, money bills shall emanate from the President. So a money bill is a special bill which cannot be subjected to additions by the National Assembly because it has no power to prepare it.

    Padding is an unconstitutional infraction when the estimates are increased on the floor of the House. The infraction becomes criminal when the Appropriation Bill is altered by a few legislators after it had been passed by both houses of the National Assembly. In the instant case, Honourable Jibrin is alleged to have altered the budget by inserting projects worth N4 billion while a handful of other legislators led by the Speaker are alleged to have included 2,000 items in the budget. Since the President was then misled to sign it as the Appropriation Bill properly passed by both houses, the principal officers of the National Assembly cannot turn round to seek protection under the Legislative Houses Powers and Privileges Act.

    It is unfortunate that Honourable Dogara has never heard of the word “padding” before now. It is not new in our legislative history.  While the 2005 Appropriation Bill was under consideration in the Senate, some senators including the Senate President padded the budget of a ministry after allegedly collecting N55 million bribe from a minister. The scandal led to the removal of the Senate President who was later charged with his indicted colleagues and the minister. The Supreme Court has recently ordered that the suspects be tried for corruption having thrown out the preliminary objections filed against the charges by them at the trial court.

    If legislators conspire with themselves to pad the budget to fund the purchase of exotic cars and payment of unauthorised jumbo emoluments, it is a criminal offence. The allegations of Honourable Jibrin have gone beyond the padding of the budget. The serious issue which the Speaker and other principal officers have not addressed is that the alterations of the budget took place outside the plenary session of the house. This is the crux of the matter. A former senator was arrested recently and the EFCC stumbled on a document which set out how N60 billion was shared among some legislators. The EFCC should investigate the source of the fund. Where did fund come from? Jibrin’s complaint should provide the country a golden opportunity to get to the root of criminality in the National Assembly.

    Regardless of the interference of the ruling party and the denial of the allegation of the padding of the 2016 budget by the Presidency, the Police and the EFCC should proceed with the investigation of the allegations of Honourable Jibrin against the leadership of the House and the counter-allegations of his colleagues against him. Up till now, the N115 billion budget of the National Assembly in the 2016 budget has been shrouded in secrecy. The ongoing investigation should reveal the details of the budget.

     

    • Falana, SAN, writes from Lagos.

  • Delta oil communities allege padding of N28bn DESOPADEC budget

    Oil producing communities in Delta State, under the auspices of Delta Oil and Gas Stakeholders Group, have alleged that the government and House of Assembly are hijacking funds accruing to the Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC).

    The groups warning is against the backdrop of a controversy over the non-passage of DESOPADEC’s N28 billion 2016 budget barely four months to end of year.

    There were allegations that some principal officers of the Assembly demanded N1 billion  ‘allocation’ to facilitate the budget’s passage.

    DOGSG, in a statement by Dr Tagbiretse John, Bro Joseph Ebidenwei, Obakpo Goodluck and Gregory Eze, said they have credible reports that the lawmakers were “padding and balkanising the budget for selfish reasons”.

    They warned that an insurgence more destructive than the havoc by militants could be in the offing, if the government failed to release allocation for the commission to pay contractors and develop their communities.

    “We have watched with growing exasperation the systematic rot that has crept in and overtaken DESOPADEC since the administration took over in 2015. We can no longer sit and do nothing while a colossal conspiracy to cripple the only hope of oil producing communities in the state is unravelling before our eyes.

    “The reason for the comatose state of DESOPADEC is not far-fetched: the non-passage of the 2015 Budget of the commission, with barely four months to the end of the year cannot augur well.

    “If the government is effective and sincere, and the House of Assembly is doing its job, the 2016 budget would be in the implementation stage and the 2017 budget would have been in the final stages of its development.

    “It is a shame that the 2016 DESOPADEC budget is still ‘lost in transit’ and nobody knows what the budget looks like or how much is contained therein. Nobody knows if the N28 billion budget presented to the House in March remains or if it has been changed and how it has been altered.

    “In this era of ‘budget padding’, there are disturbing reports that the Monday Igbuya-led House is performing abracadabra with the budget, while it is also passing like ping-pong from the Government House to the House of Assembly. Nobody is able to account for its whereabouts today.

    “This is a carefully orchestrated plot to deny fund to the commission and the oil producing areas. It is too much of a coincidence that the saga of DESOPADEC ‘Missing Budget’ started after a principal member of the House of Assembly was accused of demanding a N1 billion to facilitate its passage.

    DOGSG warned that “in view of the precarious security challenges in the Niger Delta region, there is need to avoid giving violence-prone elements opportunities to unleash further havoc on oil facilities and our communities because the deliberate decimation of DESOPADEC by the powers that be in the state is an invitation to anarchy.