National Assembly has apparently rescinded its decision to suspend indefinitely its passage of the 2016 budget.
While the leadership of the House of Representatives expressed optimism that the 2016 budget may be passed into law as anticipated on Thursday, February 25, 2016, the leader of the Senate Ali Ndume, said Sunday that the Upper House was striving to pass the 2016 budget before the end of March.
Ndume also said contrary to reports in the media, at no time did the Senate suspend indefinitely its passage of the N6.08 trillion 2016 budget, explaining that the Red Chamber only said that the February 25 dateline earlier given “may not be feasible.”
Concerns have continued to persist over the accuracy of the fiscal document alleged to have been seriously ‘padded’ and replete with errors.
After the first reading of the budget at plenary, both the Senate and the House of Representatives had fixed February 25 for the passage of the budget, soon after defence sessions with the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) at the committee level may have been concluded.
But the National Assembly last Tuesday announced that the February 25 deadline it gave for the passage of the budget estimates was no longer feasible due to inherent errors, ambiguities and phoney figures (padding) smuggled into the fiscal document.
But in what apparently looks like an about turn, the House of Representatives said at the weekend that it was working closely with the executive arm of government to ensure the speedy passage of the budget as planned.
Spokesman of the House and Chairman of the Standing Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas, who hinted this during his weekly press briefing at the weekend in Abuja, however, asked Nigerians to show understanding if the February 25 date is not achieved.
He said, “As regards 2016 Appropriation Bill, I want to state here that the 25th February dateline earlier suggested may or may not be achieved. We admit that there are issues that have come up in the budget, but the leadership of the House is working very hard in collaboration with the Executive to ensure that the dateline is achieved; but if it is not (achieved), Nigerians should show understanding.
“However, Standing Committees have been urged to stick to the timelines for interaction with the MDAs and submission of reports to the Appropriation Committee,” Namdas said.
In the same vein, Senate Leader Ndume said that the Senate did not suspend its passage of the budget indefinitely, but only said that the February 25 deadline earlier given may not be feasible.
Speaking in Abuja, Ndume said since March is the deadline for the implementation of the 2015 budget, the Senate is working hard to pass the 2016 Budget before the end of March.
The Senate leader explained that although 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, it may not be possible due to errors in the document.
“We have not postponed it indefinitely; we are saying that with the developments that we are seeing as the time goes on, the 25th February deadline we gave ourselves 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 25th and say this is the budget; we are not saying that we have suspended it indefinitely. The reason we fixed 25th was because we wanted to have a gap of five weeks,” he said.
According to him, the gap would have enabled the Senate to fix whatever issues that needed to be handled before the March 31 deadline for the implementation of the 2015 budget.
Ndume further said the leadership of the National Assembly had met with ministers to iron out the grey areas and make corrections to them.
Promising that the Senate would ensure strict compliance with the implementation of the budget, the leader said once funds were available, he was convinced that the present administration would ensure a thorough implementation of the budget.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has refuted a report by an unknown media outfit alleging fraudulent activities by members of the National Assembly in the handling of constituency projects between 2013 to 2015.
Spokesman of the House, Abdulrazak Namdas, told journalists at the weekend that the report was “unfortunate,” and that the outfit does not actually understand what constituency project was all about.
He said, “It is obvious that the Media Support Centre does not know how constituency projects are managed. Lawmakers are never given a penny to carry out constituency projects. Constituency projects are appropriated to the relevant MDAs. No cash is given to a lawmaker.
“Therefore, to say lawmakers diverted monies meant for constituency projects demonstrates not only lack of understanding of constituency projects, but also a desperate attempt by few individuals to set lawmakers against their constituents.”
Namdas assured that the 8th House of Representatives will do things differently, including ensuring that constituency projects get to the people, adding that the present 8th House of Reps has zero tolerance for corruption.
Civil servants responsible for budget padding – Gbajabiamila
Meanwhile, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, has absolved President Muhamadu Buhari of any blame in the controversy surrounding the preparation of the 2016 budget estimates.
Rather, he said the bureaucrats, made up mostly of civil servants, should take the blame for the apparent inconsistencies, padding of figures and duplications in the fiscal document.
Gbajabiamila made this comment while interacting with a delegation of the National Association of Nigerians Students (NANS) from the South-West geopolitical zone, who had come to honour him in Abuja at the weekend.
When asked to clear the air on the controversies surrounding the proposed 2016 budget, the House Leader noted that those who had been given positions of trust and saddled with the responsibility of the budget job at various levels had betrayed the trust of the President; hence Buhari is not to blame, but the civil servants.
He said, “First of all, I’m going to absolve the President, but I’m not going to absolve the people that did it. Why I must absolve the President I will tell you. The job was done by civil servants; it has 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. But the point is that he delegated (the task). 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.
“And once you delegate, the assumption is that you’re doing the work of the President, and that’s what delegating power means. It’s in the Constitution and that’s what he’s done.
“Where I think the ball was dropped, I think it was with the minister of budget and planning; because after the civil servants, whether intentionally or not intentionally, did what they did, it was for the minister of budget and planning to vet and scrutinize those things before coming to the House, or the National Assembly. It’s not for the President to do,” Gbajabiamila said.
He assured the students that President Buhari was on top of the situation.
“Don’t forget that the President was the first to raise the alarm – that it looks like there is a budget mafia,” he said. “I’m sure things will get better as we move along. The problem of Nigeria is multi-faceted. The President is dealing with one thing and he expects that the people he has appointed should be able to deal with other things.”
-Leadership