Nigerian President, Muhammadu
Buhari signed the 2018 budget yesterday saying that lawmakers made cuts
amounting to N347bn in the allocations to 4,700 projects he
submitted. He also said the lawmakers inserted 6,403 projects of their own into
the budget amounting to N578bn.
The National Assembly
had on May 16 passed the 2018 Appropriation Bill, increasing the N8.612 trillion
proposal presented by the president to N9.120 trillion.
While signing the
budget at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Buhari said “The logic behind the
Constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the Executive is
that it is the Executive that knows and defines its policies and
projects.
“Unfortunately, that
has not been given much regard in what has been sent to me.
The National Assembly
made cuts amounting to N347bn in the allocations to 4,700
projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects
of their own amounting to N578bn,” the president said.
He said many of the
projects cut were critical “and may be difficult, if not impossible, to
implement with the reduced allocation.”
He said many of the
projects introduced by the National Assembly had been added to the budgets of
MDAs with no consideration for capacity to execute them or the incremental
recurrent expenditure that may be required.
“As it is, some of
these projects relate to matters that are the responsibility of the States and
Local Governments, and for which the Federal Government should therefore not be
unduly burdened.
“Such examples of
projects from which cuts were made are as follows:
a. Counter-part
funding for the Mambilla Power Plant, Second Niger Bridge/ancillary roads,
the East-West Road, Bonny-Bodo Road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and
Itakpe-Ajaokuta Rail Project were cut by an aggregate of N11.5bn.
b. Some ongoing
projects in the FCT, Abuja especially major arterial roads and the mass transit
rail project, were cut by a total of N7.5bn.
c. Rehabilitation and
Additional Security Measures for the United Nations Building by the FCT, Abuja
was cut by N3.9bn from N4bn to N100m.
d. Upgrade of some
tertiary health institutions, transport and storage of vaccines through the
cold chain supply system, provision of anti-retroviral drugs for
persons on treatment, establishment of chemotherapy centres and
procurement of dialysis consumables were cut by an aggregate amount
of N7.45bn.
e. Security
infrastructure in the 104 Unity Schools across the country were cut by N3bn at
a time when securing our students against acts of terrorism ought to be a major
concern of government.
f. The provision for
the Federal Government’s National Housing Programme was cut by N8.7 bn.
g. A total of N5bn was
cut from the provisions for Pension Redemption Fund and Public Service Wage
Adjustment.
h. The provisions for
Export Expansion Grant (EEG) and Special Economic Zones/Industrial Parks were
cut by a total of N14.5bn.
i. Construction of
the Terminal Building at Enugu Airport was cut from N2bn to N500m which will
delay the completion of the project.
j. Take-off Grant for
the Maritime University in Delta State was cut from N5bn to N3.4bn.
k. About 70 new road
projects have been inserted into the budget of the Federal Ministry of Power,
Works and Housing. In doing so, the National Assembly applied some of the
additional funds expected from the upward review of the oil price benchmark to
the ministry’s vote. To make provision for some of the new roads, the amounts
allocated to some strategic major roads have been cut.
The president said
another area of concern was the increase by the National Assembly of the
provisions for Statutory Transfers by an aggregate of N73.96bn,
adding that “Most of these increases are for recurrent expenditure at a time we
are trying to keep down the cost of governance.”
The budget of the
National Assembly has also increased by N14.5bn, from N125bn to N139.5bn “without
any discussion with the executive.”
He said despite the
observations, he signed the budget in order not to further slowdown the
recovery of the economy which, had been affected by the delay in passing the
budget.
He, however, said he
intends to remedy some of the most critical issues through a supplementary
and/or amendment budget which he hoped the National Assembly would
expeditiously consider.
The president said in
order to achieve the laudable objectives of the 2018 budget, his government
would work very hard to generate the revenues required to finance its projects
and programmes.
He also stated that
being a deficit budget, the borrowing plan would be forwarded to the
National Assembly shortly.
He said when he
submitted the 2018 budget proposals on November 17, 2017, he had hoped that the
usual legislative review process would be quick so as to move Nigeria towards a
predictable January-December financial year.
NASS: Why we made
changes
The National Assembly
is not worried by the concerns raised by President Muhammadu Buhari over
changes it made to the 2018 budget, Senate Deputy Majority Leader, Bala
Na’Allah, has said.
He was fielding
questions from State House correspondents after the president assented to the
Appropriation Bill.
Asked if the National
Assembly was worried about the president’s concerns, Na’Allah responded: “No,
we are not worried. The job of parliamentarians is a very difficult one. The
way the budget came, if we had allowed it to go that way, we would have been in
trouble with those who elected us.
“You have to balance
between the six-geo political zones. It is the balancing efforts by the
National Assembly that led to those observations and happily enough.”
He said the National
Assembly would quickly deal with the supplementary budget which Buhari promised
to send, but added that since the president had not sent it, he could not give
a timeline for its treatment.
Na’Allah admitted that
Buhari was right about the delay in passing the budget, noting however that “if
you remember, the president had to order some MDAs to appear before the
Assembly for the purpose of defending their budgets. It’s a very delicate
issue.
Senate President
Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara were absent at the budget signing.
The chief whip of the
House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, said as an individual and
a member of the House of Representatives, “I want to believe that the president
is at liberty to raise some of these observations.”
Doguwa said the most
important thing was that the budget had been signed and had become a law of the
federation.
He said the House of
Representatives expected “the executive to now implement the law to the
letter.”
He said should Buhari
bring a supplementary budget, the House would “also at the same time be at
liberty to look at the president’s concerns and those things he wants us to now
review.”
“Some of us that are
in the APC, and even a lot of members that are in opposition are quite awareof
the enormous responsibility on the shoulders of Mr President. Now is the right
time to cooperate with Mr President and give him what he desires as the leader
of the government.”
On the delay in
passing the budget, he said the legislature could not be expected to
rubber-stamp it.
DailyTrust
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