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Tag: budget

  • 2016 Budget: 60 standing committees present report

    Sixty Standing Committees of the House of Representatives of 97 have submitted their 2016 budget report, the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation Abdulmunin Jibrin has said.

    A statement by the lawmaker said the Committee on Appropriation formally closed the collation of reports on the 2016 budget from standing committees (sub-committees to the Committee on Appropriation) on Friday.

    “In all, 60 substantive committees presented their reports and recommendations, covering improvements, shortcomings and actions to be taken in their respective MDAs.”

    Jibrin expressed appreciation for the cooperation of the committees and that they heeded the call to submit their reports within the deadline.

    “This is for the interest of the nation and the commitment of the National Assembly to pass the 2016 budget by the second week of March.

    “However, it is regrettable that some committees still did not meet the deadline and have not submitted any reports.

    “Due to pressure of time because we have to tidy up the final report with the Senate, the Committee on Appropriation will  take over the work of such committees by appropriating funds for the MDAs they supervise.”

    He said the Appropriation committee will also interface with officials of the Ministry of Finance, Budget Office, on March 3.

    “The following committees, however, failed to submit their reports as mandated by the House leadership: Public Accounts Committee, PAC, Loans, Aid  and Debts,  Gas Resources, Public Service Matters, Maritime and Safety, Interior and  National Security,” he said

  • Reps, Finance Minister, others to meet over budget

    To resolve the inconsistencies and alleged padding  of the 2016 budget proposal discovered by various Standing Committees during interface with the Ministers and Heads of Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee is to hold special budget defence session with the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and Minister of Budget and Planning, Udo Ndoma.

    Also invited by the  Committees are the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) and the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation.

    Chairman House Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who spoke on the presentation of the 2016 budget so far, revealed that all budget proposals of the MDAs presented by House Standing Committees, have been harmonised with their Senate counterparts.

    He said: “By tomorrow  (Friday) we will finish taking the reports; we have agreed that we will invite the Minister of Budget and Planning, Minister of Finance, the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Director of Budget Office and Central Bank Governor and engage them extensively on the entire budget.

    “We also have pending issues on the 2015 budget, so they have to come with 2015 budget performance and then we will go into special session,” Jibrin stated.

    The lawmaker also directed the Clerk of the Committee to liaise with the office of the Clerk of the House to access members’ data base for easy dispatch of messages to all the 360 members and various committees  for final submission and consideration of the MDAs budget.

    It was learnt that only 15 committees out of the 97 Standing Committees have so far submitted and defended their budget before the Appropriations Committee.

    A communication from the Appropriations Committee which was read in the floor yesterday by the Speaker Yakubu Dogara, instructed chairmen of all the standing Committees to submit and defend their MDAs budget by Friday (today) or risk zero budget in the 2016 budget.

    Jibrin warned that the last session of the budget defence would hold today and would commence by 8am.

  • Budget: Plateau to depend on internal revenue

    Plateau State Commissioner for Finance Mrs. Tamwakat Weli has said the 2016 budget before the House of Assembly can only be financed by internal revenue.

    The commissioner, who spoke yesterday while leading a tax sensitisation road walk around Jos, said: “The dependence on oil revenue and monthly statutory allocation to states in the past is no longer enough to sustain states’ expenditure. Each state will have to look for alternative revenue to fund local budget.”

    The walk, organised by the Board of Internal Revenue, took workers and management around major streets in Jos to create awareness on the importance of paying tax.

    Mrs. Weli said: “The awareness campaign becomes necessary following the fall in oil prices and reduction in federal allocation to the state.”

  • Re-this budget: Heads must just roll

    Re-this budget: Heads must just roll

    If the president is, understandably, too busy, a document as important  as his first ever budget  should have been supervised by either  his deputy or the chairman of  his economic  team?

    “Why on earth are Jonathan’s appointees sitting pretty as head of critical agencies of state when he (President Buhari) knew that their track record during the campaigns and presumed voting pattern during the election point unerringly to the fact that they neither believe in his candidacy nor his policies. No, as bona fide Nigerians, nobody is suggesting that they should be made to lose their jobs but for Christ’s sake why were many of these people not moved to less sensitive posts?”

    So wrote this column last week and our listening president did not delay: in under 24 hours, most of the Jonathanian rodents were gone. As I wrote, elsewhere, even if their sack owed nothing, at all, to what we wrote, it is still good riddance to bad rubbish.  And when I heard that an errand girl of the former First Lady was complaining, my reaction was: she should first tell Nigerians how she could have transmogrified from her appalling supercilious closeness to that First Lady to become a loyal member of the Buhari administration.

    I have never had as many reactions to any of the articles on this column.  Here are two.

    Happy  reading.

    “Yours was a very good article but it would not sway me from appraising the president to see if he could be promoted ‘on trial’, to the next class. This is the same politician we ‘rejected’ three times at the polls but finally embraced when we felt that anything will be better than GEJ. He sold to us the change brand and we are not going to take anything less than the original from him. That should tell the fragility of the relationship between PMB and the rest of us now. Like millions of other Nigerians, I stuck out my neck to work and vote PMB, I have, however, since recoiled to my pre-Buhari mold of ‘not-yet-uhuru’ to, at least, avoid disappointment. I no longer expect a miracle since facts on ground do not show the expected change; at least not in scope. I did not show up at rallies but joined the vanguard of those who employed ‘word of mouth’ to convince bewildered Nigerians – friends and relations to work for a meaningful change. This made me to run on a collision course with my principal and pastors which nearly ruined long standing relationship with family and friends. I desired, voted and expected real CHANGE from black to white and not grey because I, like other Nigerians, knew the extent of the rot and thought candidate Buhari will be tough and strong enough to pull through, having shown that he knows how virulent corruption could be. So far, the president and his party have overpromised and under-delivered. I still remember his popular quote that if we fail to stop corruption, then corruption will kill us. Why then treat such monster with kid gloves? If he is busy cleaning the past, must he tolerate another spill under his very watch? A million excuses will not erase the pains of disappointment. Can we say that the president, his erudite VP and the star studded cabinet lack basic understanding of the depth of corruption in Nigeria where churches and other religious organisations have become breeding grounds for corruption? I regard the budget as the most important document and a tool to bring about CHANGE, but see how this important tool has been ruined.

    The argument that the past was bad is no good lyric for a change agent. That is the very basis for the  CHANGE mantra.  Nigerians, just like the president, know that the past is horrible, undesirable and should be avoided. That is why he should have watched  out for every single  manifestation of the vices of  endemic corruption everywhere in his administration and at all times, until he can deliver  the final blow to it in partnership with ordinary Nigerians, not the elite, especially the  lawyers we see daily, doing everything to make corruption prosper and luxuriate in Nigeria. It would have been soothing if the discrepancies in the budget were discovered at the compilation stage by the President and his men, not by an unfriendly National Assembly. Could it be true that such would have gone unnoticed if Lawan’s establishment – preferred Senate leadership was in place, or if Saraki’s like- minds has harmonised fully with the Presidency? That is a big sentiment in the public domain: that the country would most probably have been shortchanged, as usual, and made to bleed from its sick bed even under a trusted President Buhari since the budget mafia remains alive, and kicking.

    The president and his men, both inside and outside of government, will fare much better by accepting responsibility for this fatal flaw rather than indulge in any blame game. The buck must stop at the president’s desk. We voted for execution and not excuses. Unfortunately, the president’s constitutional powers have not been fully invoked to deal with corruption and that is why we see it fighting back ferociously. For instance, the power to hire and fire should since have been used to remove the CBN Governor who became a mere paymaster; an errand boy of sorts, for illegal disbursement of unappropriated funds  to politicians  and all kind of persons during the last administration, a position  totally against his job description. For instance, why did it take the CBN so long to appreciate the fact that BDC should not be funded through the official forex?

    If the Director of Budget is removed, what of the Minister, and the Permanent Secretary? The budget should have been read and carefully studied by a cabinet rank officer. He is equally guilty. If the president is, understandably, too busy, a document as important  as his first ever budget  should have been supervised by either  his deputy or the chairman of  his economic  team? It was all round negligence of duty.

    If the Budget Director is liable so is our president, his deputy, the minister and others who have been elected to serve us competently. The absolute minimum is for them to own up and learn the appropriate lessons. Such lessons must not be lost, ever, or they come back more tragic. The real tragedy will be to move on as if nothing happened. That will be better than merely  holding the conductor responsible for an accident caused by the driver. In an era of change, we will do  a lot better by changing the way we do the business of government, if only to get disillusioned Nigerians properly connected to a government they elected and can truly call their own; unlike the usual impositions. The president should pay more attention to these things so that we can, once again in unison, joyously shout: FEBUHARI again, when in February we will be approaching the midterm of his administration.

    Time waits for nobody! ” -Kunle Oladele

    Femi, do you really think we need bother those deservedly retired technocrats? We  also don’t  need the Head Of Service  or  Secretary to Government   to persuade  the  president but direct our appeal straight to him to put in place, a team  of patriotic young  Nigerians with the  expertise, as  Special Assistants, working directly under  his  or the VP’s supervision,  to initiate budgets  and policies,  where necessary,  but primarily,  to  monitor, evaluate  and report  on all capital projects  and  the monster recurrent expenditure with emphasis on detailed pre-fund release documentations  and  auditing. Between us, I am sure we know a few honest and dependable young Nigerians, both here at home, and in the Diaspora, who can do this  job.  The civil service is far too gone in debauchery; it requires a complete overhaul – Patrick, Abuja.

    COMMENTS ON: WANTED BY THE U.S: THE STOLEN MILLIONS OF DESPOTS AND CROOKED ELITES

    To have heard what Mike Igini, unarguably our best ever INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, said on Channels TV, to wit:  that a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, accused him on a flight from Abuja to Lagos that by the introduction of card readers, INEC was stopping them from making money, is to confirm Olu Aluko’s views that some of these senior lawyers and judges, are kissing cousins. It is, therefore, no surprise that by one single stroke the Supreme Court nullified  all of  Professor Atahiru Jega’s robust achievements in office, thereby setting Nigeria back many decades.

    How unfortunate!

  • A budget of errors

    The drama over the 2016 budget seems unending. As one act ends, another opens, making Nigerians wonder whether the government really worked on the appropriation bill before sending it to the National Assembly. It was with fanfare that President Muhammadu Buhari presented the budget to the National Assembly last December 22. Tagged ‘’Budget of Change’’, it is, according to the president, meant to restore Nigerians’  hope in their country after so many years in the wilderness.

    Sadly, the enthusiasm about the budget is waning. Nigerians cannot understand what is happening to the budget over one month after it was presented to the lawmakers. Rather than see their representatives progress with work on the budget, it has been one complaint after the other since the document got to them about two months ago. From the Senate, first came the allegation that the budget had ‘’disappeared’’. Disappear? Nigerians could not believe their ears. How could the budget disappear when it is not a piece of paper on which something was hurriedly scribbled?

    As the din over its whereabouts grew, the Presidency wrote to the National Assembly leadership, seeking to recall the budget for some corrections. Last January 19, it sent the corrected budget back to the lawmakers, with the figures, it said, ‘’remaining the same’’. Since the revised appropriation bill got to the lawmakers, our ears have been tingling from what we have been hearing from those coming to defend their budget. The impression they are creating is that they do not know anything about the document’s preparation. It sounds unbelievable that a minister will not know about his ministry’s budget until  he is confronted with the figures by the lawmakers.

    It all looks so comical, but it is not a laughing matter; no, not at all. Is it possible for a minister not to be in the know of his ministry’s budget until he and his team appear for its defence at the National Assembly? If this is so, who then prepared the budget? Was it prepared before the minister assumed office? If that is the case, was he not briefed about what was done before it was sent to the Budget Office for collation along with others? If we did not see the respective ministries working on their budgets, at least we saw the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, and his team working on the N6.08 trillion budget on national television.

    Udoma even invited Vice President Yemi Osinbajo ‘’to see what we are  doing’’. The vice president praised the team for what it was doing and Udoma said then that what remained was to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Unfortunately, the budget defence has put a lie to the so-called enormous efforts said to have been put into the document’s preparation. Is this happening because the administration is in a hurry to meet the people’s expectation? It is good that the administration desires to fulfil its obligation to the people, but it will be better if it is thorough and painstaking in doing so because a country’s budget should be prepared by the finest minds around.

    No matter the hurry in drawing up the budget, every figure must be correct so that when the document comes under scrutiny, as it is now at the National Assembly, there will be no room for doubts. Doubts have been created with the disowning of the budget by some ministers and the discrepancies discovered by the lawmakers. The firing of Director-General of the Budget Office Yahaya Gusau on Monday shows that there is more to the matter than meets the eye. Last February 8, Health Minister Prof Isaac Adewole caused a stir when he told the Senate Committee on Health that his ministry’s original budget had been ‘’largely distorted’’. A bigger drama occurred at the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market last Thursday when the Investment and Securities Tribunal (IST) represented its 2015 budget for 2016.

    ‘’The budget for IST in the 2016 budget proposal is just an exact copy of its 2015 appropriation. It is word for word; figure for figure. And items dealt with and completed in 2015 were repeated’’, the panel said. Are those who prepared the budget blind? Or was it done deliberately to perpetrate fraud? The seriousness of the matter should not be lost on us all. This is why I disagree with Udoma that the errors were ‘’overplayed’’. They were not overplayed. Rather, it is Udoma, with all due respect,  that wants to downplay a serious matter for which those responsible should be punished. A budget is not a document that should be treated in a slipshod manner the way some civil servants have attempted to do with the 2016 appropriation bill. I expect the minister to be angry that some people want to rubbish the first budget that will be prepared under his watch instead of him talking as if there is nothing to what has happened. There is a lot to it and in some countries it could have led to the resignation of the man in charge.

    To many Nigerians, the president’s probe of the ‘’budget padding’’ is welcome so that our people will know that it is no longer business as usual. We expect more heads to roll over this matter besides that of Gusau. That will be the only way for Buhari to live up to his promise that ‘’the 2016 budget will address the problems. We are here to serve Nigeria and indeed Nigerians will get the service they have longed for’’.

     

    See who’s PDP chair

    On Tuesday night, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff popularly known as SAS became Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman after a lot of wheeling and dealing. Many never expected PDP to go for SAS, but the party has made its choice; so it should live with it. But what has SAS, a former Borno State governor, got to offer the party? We wait to see.

     

    The seven ‘wise men’

    The jury is still out on the Supreme Court verdict upholding the election of Nyesom Wike as Rivers State governor. Did the Supreme Court err? Was the full court of seven justices induced? I keep my gun powder dry for now. For the benefit of readers, who have been asking, the seven-man panel comprised Chief Justice Mahmud Mohammed, Justice Ibrahim Muhammad, Justice Nwali Ngwuta, Justice Kumai Aka’ahs, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, who delivered the lead judgement, Justice John Okoro and Justice Aminu Sanusi.

  • Budget should be withdrawn, says Fayose

    Budget should be withdrawn, says Fayose

    Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose has said the sack of former Director General (Budget) Yahaya Gusau by President Muhammadu Buhari is not enough to address the controversies generated by the budget.

    Gusau has since been replaced with Tijani Ahmed.

    The governor insisted that the budget must be withdrawn from the National Assembly and a new and error-free re-presented before it is signed into law.

    He said sacking one or two persons won’t remove “the stain on the budget” caused by alleged padding with strange figures which has caused the Federal Government embarrassment.

    Fayose in a statement on Tuesday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, contended that the 2016 Budget required a holistic approach and not just making of a scapegoat.

    He said: “I wonder how Nigeria can operate on a budget already disowned by notable ministers, including the government’s spokesperson.

    “Or what remedy can anyone do to a budget in which 2015 budgetary allocations of an agency was reproduced verbatim? Even N180 million was discovered to have been allocated to NIMET twice.”

  • Senate to pass budget before March 31, says Ndume

    Senate to pass budget before March 31, says Ndume

    •Gbajabiamila: Buhari not to blame for inconsistencies in proposal

    The Senate will pass this year’s budget before the end of next month, Ali Ndume said yesterday.

    The Senate leader said the 2015 budget would end next month and it was the desire of the Senate to pass the 2016 budget before that time.

    Ndume said contrary to reports in the media, the Senate did not suspend its passage indefinitely, but only said February 25 “may not be feasible”.

    The Senate leader noted that it was the wish of the National Assembly to pass the budget five weeks before the expiry of the period set for the implementation of the 2015 budget.

    But he explained that it would not be possible due to some errors.

    His words: “We have not postponed it indefinitely; we are saying that with the developments we are seeing, the February 25 deadline may not be realistic.

    “That is why we now said that going by this, it is not possible to say we will come back on February 25 and say this is the budget; we are not saying that we have suspended it indefinitely.

    “The reason we fixed February 25 was because we wanted to have a gap of five weeks,” he said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

    The Senate leader said the gap would have enabled the Senate fix whatever issues that needed to be handled before the March 31 deadline for the implementation of the 2015 budget.

    The leadership of the National Assembly, Ndume said, met with ministers to iron out the grey areas and make corrections to the contentious areas.

    He assured Nigerians that the Senate would ensure strict compliance with the implementation of the budget.

    Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, yesterday exonerated President Muhammadu  Buhari for the inconsistencies in the 2016 budget.

    The lawmaker, who made the statement while receiving leaders of the National Association of Nigerians Students in Abuja at the weekend, said the civil servants should be blamed.

    He said: “I’m going to absolve the President; but I’m not going to absolve the people that put it in. Why I must absolve the President, I will tell you.

    “The job was done by civil servants; it’s always been done by civil servants

    The President does not sit in a ministry, he doesn’t know what’s going on in a ministry or what they need or do not need.

    “The argument can be that the buck stops at his desk. I agree with that. He must take responsibility. Under the constitution, he has the right to delegate his work to ministers. And he delegated the issue of budget and planning to the minister of Budget and Planning.

    “Where I think the ball was dropped, was with the minister of Budget and Planning. Because after the civil servants, whether intentionally or not, did what they did, it was for the minister of Budget and National Planning to vet and scrutinise those things before coming to the House, or the National Assembly. It’s not for the President to do so.”

    The lawmaker reminded the students that it was Buhari who first drew the attention of Nigerians to the issues in the budget.

    Also, Senator Gbenga Ashafa yesterday assured Nigerians that the 2016 budget would be transparently passed and that there won’t be hidden figures.

    Speaking with reporters in Lagos at the weekend, Ashafa promised that the Presidency and the National Assembly would not cover up for any shortcomings in the budget.

    He assured the citizens that they would get the best from the budget.

  • Budget controversies

    •We welcome government’s promised probe of the national embarrassment

    Bewildering. That best captures the many twists and turns that have attended the 2016 Budget of the Federal Government. As it stands, everything about the budget – with the exception of the rite of its presentation on December 22, 2015 – has been dogged with controversy.

    It started when, hours to the kick-off of the debates on the general principles, the document, presented in the full glare of global media, was sensationally declared missing. It took the letter written by President Muhammadu Buhari on January 19, to the National Assembly informing the lawmakers of the errors in the proposal earlier sent to them for the matter to be resolved, but this after nearly a week of recriminations on both sides.

    If Nigerians had thought that the fog surrounding the budget had cleared, the nation would again learn that even the corrected version had also been allegedly doctored by the bureaucracy. A week into the budget defence, virtually all the ministers that have appeared before the Joint Committees of the National Assembly have practically disowned the votes allocated to their ministries.

    Earlier, the Senate was reported to have discovered a sum of N10 billion smuggled into the budget of the Ministry of Education for an allegedly questionable subhead. Days after, health minister, Professor Isaac Adewole, would kick off another fire-storm when he told shocked members of the Senate Committee on Health that the proposal drawn up and submitted by his ministry to the budget office had been doctored by “budget rats”. For the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, it was the matter of “strange” provision of N230 million and N168 million for the purchase of computers for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Film and Video Censors Board, respectively.

    For a budget which should ordinarily be the main anchor of the Buhari administration’s promise of change, it is unfortunate that the nation has found itself in an embarrassing situation where the integrity of the process has become the issue. As it is, there is no doubt that a lot went wrong in the process. Nigerians not only deserve to know, they are entitled to understand what went wrong. What is unacceptable is the finger-pointing by the ministers even when their lapses as a collective, are more than apparent. We consider their current posturing as unhelpful to the process of unravelling the mystery, and the attempt to tag a section of the bureaucracy with the label of criminality even without proof as opportunistic.

    We say this mindful of the fact that the bureaucracy actually did the bulk of the preliminary work on the controversial budget. Nigerians may recall that the ministers, sworn in on November 11, 2015 had six weeks to work with the civil servants on its final shape before it was presented. Would that explain some of the wide discrepancies that later emerged? Is it a case of the ministers themselves not sufficiently painstaking in view of the relatively short time they had to peruse the estimates?

    Secondly, our understanding is that the zero-based budgeting approach adopted by the Buhari administration is substantially new to the civil servants, most of whom had operated on the old ‘cut and paste’ envelop system. Could this also be a factor in some of the issues now coming to the fore?

    Far from providing alibis for the widespread padding and inflation of the budget as alleged, we find it necessary to raise these posers if only to underscore the danger of making generalisations without the benefit of thorough investigations.

    We therefore welcome the investigations as proposed by the Federal Government. They should be thorough and open. Indeed, our desire is to see those guilty of the alleged infractions punished strictly in accordance with the provisions of the law. In the end, it is important that the budget both reflects the exigencies and priorities of the current time, to ensure that the nation gets to have commensurate value for every kobo of public funds spent.

  • This budget: Heads must just roll

    This budget: Heads must just roll

    Why on earth are Jonathan’s appointees sitting pretty as head of critical agencies of state when he knew that their track record during the campaigns and presumed voting pattern during the election point unerringly to the fact that they neither believe in his candidacy nor his policies?

    In the first of my quartet of articles captioned: ‘Periscoping The Ideal Presidential Candidate For The APC’ through which I vigorously campaigned for the candidature of contestant Mohammadu Buhari as the party’s best foot forward, I asked interested Nigerians to weigh in with their own preferences. One of the earliest responders was a young man, Biodun, a graduate of Insurance Studies from the University of Lagos. He had nothing but the best words for contestant Buhari. However, he wrote me again this past week, almost a changed man, especially when news broke about how untidy President Buhari’s first budget had turned. He wrote:

    “President Muhammadu Buhari’s inability so far to look the greedy Nigerian politicians in the eye and failure to remove their itchy hands from the Nigerian treasury will most likely be his albatross; one to make his presidency as uneventful  as those of other presidents before him. Nearly all of us that laboured to have him elected had infectious enthusiasm about his coming to power, believing that the excessive perks politicians vote themselves annually would end through appropriate and prompt constitutional amendment at the instance of the executive. Nine months after, President Buhari has still chosen to look the other way. The huge crowds that turned up at his iconic political rallies all over the country have turned out the losers as the salaries and perks of these legislators remain as outrageous as ever with  constituency allowances without constituency offices, unending  purchases of exotic cars in the name of committee work, unearned severance packages for, among others, ex-governors who already got paid gratuities as well as life pensions with cars every two years, a house in any choice part of Nigeria etc.  For how long will President Buhari look askance? That is not to mention immunity and billions of security vote for governors when insecurity is one of our greatest problems in Nigeria. Local government autonomy too appears not to be any issue President Buhari wants to bother himself about, perhaps because he still won’t look the governors and their godfathers in the face. (The columnist, like the late Uncle Bola Ige, believes that Local Government issues should be a complete state matter with no interference, whatever, from the federal) The other day, Buhari complained that he has his reservations about Nigerian courts’ willingness to join him to make Nigeria a difficult place for corruption to thrive and promptly got a response from the Punch newspaper, counselling him to arrest and prosecute corrupt judges, siting examples from other countries. The truth is that he takes too long to act on anything. He is a well loved president, perhaps more than any other president Nigeria has had, but President Buhari is failing to live up to how the huge crowds of Nigerians that attended his political rallies want him to act. Maybe as a reminder to the president, Nigerians want him to do the following: remove the clause for 36 ministers from the constitution, grant local government autonomy, remove immunity and severance pay for politicians (and considerably reduce the pay for ex presidents and vice). The president should get involved in the processes of constitutional amendment and get all these done quickly for the good of. Nigeria.  All these outrageous politicians’ perks should end. Civil servants must take a minimum 30 per cent pay cut and politicians 80 per cent, while all sorts of pensions for politicians are abolished. Public office is a privilege, not a right. Nobody should fleece Nigeria in the name of being elected to public office. Concerning this shambolic 2016 budget, the least said the better.”

    And so ended the young man’s jeremiad.

    Unlike the colony of naysayers who are still bellyaching over President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s ouster, and therefore criticising the incumbent, the furore over President Buhari’s completely manipulated 2016 budget is a massive testimony to the efficacy as well as the effectiveness of his change mantra. This certainly is not the first time budgets in Nigeria are mercilessly padded and under any of the past PDP presidents of those 16 years of locust, the regime of the habitual letter writer inclusive, this same budget, warts and all, would have been passed with aplomb. Padding Nigerian budgets has always been the product of an evil collusion between members of the National Assembly committees and our evil, sorry civil servants, especially the permanent secretaries and the Budget Office but by far worse are the Director-Generals of MDAs. These loots are then creatively creamed off during the legislators’ meaningless, so-called oversight functions. As you read this, only a miniscule number of our National Assembly members would be worth less than a billion naira in net worth.  Yet they make the most noise, faking integrity. Two things must have happened in the instant case. The overriding ambition of the current leadership of the National Assembly which led them to mess up their party leadership, had resulted in a nebulous National Assembly where both the Senate President and his House counterpart as well as their PDP Deputy Senate President – an anomaly of the first order – as distinct from the arm of government they represent – behave like they are above their political party, the APC.  In the circumstance, only a fool will wager that they would, on any or on all issues, buy into Buhari’s agenda. Were this not a self-inflicted problem, one should have been moved to pity the APC which having sown the wind in many instances, would sure come to reap the whirl wind, the Kogi State self-immolation being a good example.

    Since the party is that confused in the National Assembly, a wounded PDP whose debauchery over the past 16 years, but especially in the last six years of   President Jonathan is being daily exhumed, though complicit in the usual yearly budget padding, must have been waiting to show to Nigerians that Buhari though might be a good corruption fighter, he is certainly not adept at administering the country. The idea is to make him look like a giant with clay feet.  You can hardly ever best their choice of the budget to attempt to desecrate a man so highly admired at home and internationally: a man US Secretary of State, John Kerry, would do anything to praise to high heavens at an in international forum as the world recently saw less than a month ago at the World Economic Forum. Unfortunately, however, there is a sense in which the president brought this on himself. Why on earth are Jonathan’s appointees sitting pretty as head of critical agencies of state when he knew that their track record during the campaigns and presumed voting pattern during the election point unerringly to the fact that they neither  believe in his candidacy nor his policies? No, as bona fide Nigerians, nobody is suggesting that they should be made to lose their jobs, but for Christ’s sake why were many of these people not moved to less sensitive posts?  No Nigerian, abreast of what happened under President Jonathan, can fake any ignorance of how the duo of the Finance Minister and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation ensured that not less than 75 per cent of the heads of the regulatory agencies came from their part/s of the country.  Since these persons then ran their posts as they deemed, what would they not do to open up Buhari as worse than Jonathan?

    As things stand, it is good the president has ordered an inquiry into the budget disaster but it has got to be a proper one. He must assign Nigerians of integrity to do this yeoman’s national service and whoever is found culpable must be tried for economic sabotage. The in-house old budget mafia must have leveraged on the newness to the system of both the finance minister, who they have been using their huge international connections to denigrate, as well as the budget minister, both of who Nigerians, fortunately, know to have performed very well at their past desks.

    In conclusion, if the Secretary to the Government of the Federation – not Head of Service – wants President Buhari to succeed, he must persuade the President to empanel a committee of civil service veterans on which all the geo- political zones are represented but peopled only by the likes of civil servants of impeccable integrity like Dr Goke Adegoroye and Dr Tunji Olaopa. These are the ones I know and trust, imbued as they are, with the Pa Simeon Adebo administrative DNA. There must be such men all over the country. Look for them to help this government.

     

  • ‘Saying NASS pads budget is an insult to us’

    ‘Saying NASS pads budget is an insult to us’

    Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin is the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation. In this interview with a select group of reporters, including Victor Oluwasegun, he speaks on various aspects of the 2016 proposed budget.

    You appear quiet on this budget, why?

    I don’t completely agree with you that we have been quiet about the budget. We’ve been very active. We have done a lot of work and want to speak through our actions. We’ve done the first reading, debated for three consecutive days and it has passed the second reading. It has been committed to the Committee on Appropriation and in line with the tradition of the House, gotten all the chairmen of the 96 committees and discussed the timetable.

    Also, in line with the rules of the House, the 96 committees will present reports and recommendations on their various budgetary allocations; which means that they will also do their budget defence before us; that will take us another one week. Then we shall commence critical activities in the whole of this process, which is harmonizing with the Senate.

    The benchmark and exchange rate that was used is no longer feasible, don’t you think this two aspects should be reviewed?

    I agree with you completely and it is also our general thinking in the House that the benchmark for oil at $38 per barrel, has gone below that figure. I’m sure that during this budget period, we will engage with the Committee of Finance and relevant committees and should be able to fix the benchmark at a very safe figure that should be more realistic. It is one of our concerns. The aspect of the non-oil projections look very realistic, but going by history, we must be extremely disciplined to ensure that the projections are met. On the aspect of the exchange rate, it is an exclusivity of the CBN which gives justification for the fixing of exchange rate. We do not interfere, but we will engage the apex bank so that we can discuss the feasibility of any adjustment. There is also the aspect of the budget deficit financing, we are concerned about that, so we are going to engage the executive, particularly the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Budget and Planning to make sure how the deficit is going to be financed. Generally, the position of the National Assembly is to reduce domestic borrowing significantly, so we expect that a chunk of the borrowing should come from external sources. Already, the economy is struggling and you will put more weight in terms of drawing more money from the local economy. What is important to us is that we are able to pass a budget that the executive will implement.

    Do you think the issue of financing the budget from the non-oil sector is feasible?

    If you look at the budget details, the most ambitious projection is coming from the non oil sector. If you look at the sectoral allocation in terms of capital allocations in the budget, what the committees are going to do is to prioritize the capital expenditure which is geared towards diversifying the economy so we can get more funds from non-oil sector. Also, very important is that the government has introduced the TSA, which is working now but has been a bit of a challenge in the past. But I think the MDAs are gradually keying in. I think the TSA has put a lot of discipline. Even as chairman of Finance Committee, it has always been my position that we have enough potential from our MDAs to locally be able to raise sufficient funds to finance our budget and match up with expenditure equal to the amount they raise year after year. We are seeing that it is gradually reducing, but we need to take it a step further. Some of these MDAs that do not bring their budgets for appropriation to NASS must start submitting them so that the Budget Office, Federal Executive Council will have an idea of the expenditure of these agencies and be able to compare it side by side with the revenue.

    What is the House doing to ensure that loopholes through which money are siphoned by MDAs are blocked?

    The House has been in the vanguard to block loopholes. We try to make sure that the revenues lost through such loopholes are reduced and this budget is not going to be an exception. The committees have been told to be on the watch-out and they are looking at areas where monies are being wasted and ensure such are taken away from the budget.

    The NASS has the yam and the knife, now the present budget came to N6.08 trillion, yet the MDAs are complaining that the size of the money allocated to them is small, do you have the intention of increasing their budgets?

    Traditionally, money has never been enough for any agency, so it is not new for them to always ask for more. So, we have decided that in order to reduce the areas of friction, we advised the committees to stick to their envelopes so no committee will expand its budget and they will operate within the envelope that has been allocated to that MDA. I do not see the size of the budget growing more than has been brought, but what they have been given the latitude to do is to be able to move the money within the capital and recurrent sub-heads. That is not moving within capital and within recurrent. So, if you are moving money within recurrent, it is strictly overhead. There is also the aspect that we have always been uncomfortable which has to do with personal budgets. If there is concrete evidence that such personal budget has been inflated, so the Appropriation Committee will work with the relevant House committee to ensure that it is pruned down to what we think is the appropriate sum. Since the budget is coming from the executive we expect that they have consulted with the relevant MDAs before it was brought to us. Talking about the zero budgeting system, I think what they are trying to do is to make sure it takes off this year. It is going to be a gradual process; you may not see the future very much in the budget now because it is new, but at the end of this budget period, we will be able to review the process and see if they can retain it.

    The Senate saw, hidden in the education budget, N10b, has the House found anything like that in any of the MDA budgets?

    In every budget, you will have such instances and it is not in every such instance that the action is deliberate. We must also realise that the budget is prepared by humans and so you have to give a bit of flexibility. Sometimes, figure do not tally, in such instance, we pick out this and ensure that they are properly reflected and cleared away from the budget, but again, this time around, the committees of the House, are all doing a very thorough job because they are engaging the MDAs at the moment and I am sure wherever there are such issues, they will be able to deal with it.  We always take exception when people say the National Assembly pads the budget, it is a complete insult to us. We do understand that what comes from the Executive is a proposal, and it is the NASS that is constitutionally empowered to pass the budget; we have the constitutional power to move, amend the way we deem fit, that is going to be in the interest of Nigerians and the budget will be implementable. The issue of padding should not even come up. As at today, nobody from the executive arm of government has used the word padding of budget by the legislature. We at NASS are very conscious of the time limit and also minimize the areas of conflicts with the Executive.

    On production cost of oil?

    One very important aspect that swallows a large chunk of the money in the budget is the cash call and production costs. Many people take their eyes away from production costs. But it is critical; this is because every year we pay an average of one trillion naira as cost of production. So, it is important that this time around, we need to sit with relevant authorities in the oil and gas sector to see the details of this production cost, to ensure the country is not just being shortchanged. We are just mopping a lot of money from the first line charge just to give to our foreign partners.