Satisfied that it has weathered the storm over the 2016 budget, the Presidency has raised a special committee saddled with monitoring its smooth implementation in order to give Nigerians real value.
The committee, according to the Budget and National Planning Minister, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, is headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, will track the performance of the budget and report back to the President for necessary action.
This comes after a breakthrough appeared to have been made between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the budget.
The two sides met Tuesday night for some hours and deliberated on the controversial areas and resolved the thorny issues.
The meeting, according to a competent source, was to deliberate on grey areas that had forced NASS to return the fiscal document to the executive and generated untold tension in the land over the weeks.
Among those said to have attended the meeting were ministers responsible for finance and national Planning, the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives as well as officials responsible for revenue generation.
Also in attendance were heads of Finance and Appropriation committees in the National Assembly and other officials of the budget office. A top source close to the meeting said on Friday that it was ‘probably the last in the series’ to break the deadlock in the budget row even though it was the third to be held within the last one month.
“We are confident that a solution had been found to the controversial issues in the budget document before the NASS. The truth of the matter is that the controversy arose because some people did not want to go with President Buhari’s Zero-budget having been used to the ‘envelop system’.
“Despite all the furore over the budget, the truth remains that there is nothing wrong with it; the final figure is not affected despite what some persons tried to add to it.
“Hopefully, a common ground has now been found that would pave the way for the passage of the budget within the next two weeks so as to move the country forward,” the source said.
Udoma while receiving a delegation from the Nigerian Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) expressed optimism that this year’s budget would bring about economic growth for Nigerians.
The Minister said the budget was structured according to the realities of the Nigerian economy; as the country could no longer continue to depend on only oil to fund its budget.
Udoma said, “Our 2016 Budget is designed to have capital component of 30 per cent that will reflate our economy and provide infrastructural growth for investors to leverage upon.”
Acknowledging the private sector as the engine room of development, Senator Udoma told the delegation that the present administration is fully committed to building an investment friendly environment for the organized private sector, which is part of why this year’s budget gave prominence to infrastructure development.
He agreed that the private sector required sound and effective infrastructure to operate and assured that government was doing everything possible to ensure that the engine room of the economy runs smoothly.
This desire of government, he explained, was why it deliberately decided that this year’s budget must align with planning needs, pointing out that the structure of the budget is very good as it does not only address development needs but does not entirely depend on oil as its only source of funding.
He assured that the government was fashioning out policies that would encourage export and domestic production in its determined effort to ensure that most of the things consumed in the country are produced in Nigeria.
Earlier, the national President of NACCIMA, Chief Bassey E. Edem applauded the Zero-based budget system adopted by the Federal Government and particularly the diversification policy of the present administration.
While stressing the need for a focused infrastructure development effort to better the state of roads, rail and electricity in the country, the NACCIMA president advised to give priority attention to agriculture and solid minerals development as these were capable of providing alternative sources of bulk income for the country.
He called for the establishment of export villages in some parts of Nigeria for the sake of regularly showcasing the country’s export potentials and guaranteeing product quality.
Blame Presidency for 2016 budget delay — Reps
The House of Representatives has berated the Presidency for hampering early passage of the 2016 budget and promised to reconcile discrepancies in figures within one week to ensure that the budget is passed second week of March.
The House Committee on Appropriation will meet with the Minister of Finance and that of the Budget and National Planning next Thursday to reconcile all areas of differences.
This is just as the House Committee on Finance disclosed that the sum of N777.2 billion was recovered from the reconciliation of the subsidy payment last year.
Chairman of the Finance Committee, Rep Babangida Ibrahim gave the hint during the presentation of the budget report from the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC), Accountant-General of the Federation and Fiscal Responsibility Commission.
He also requested for additional N118 million for personnel cost of the RMFAC, which was cut down by the Federal Ministry of Budget and Planning.
The Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Rep. Abdulmumini Jibrin who accused the executive of slowing down the quick passage of the budget during the collation of reports from the 86 House Standing Committees, also said that the House will no longer wait for the Senate to conclude budget defence.
Jibrin who expressed worry over the way the Presidency is delaying quick passage of the budget with tardy budget defence, said that even if the appropriation was to be re-written, three and half months were enough to do so.
According to him, “It is the executive arm that is putting us under pressure to see the budget passed. Some MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies) have failed to appear for budget defence.”
Collaborating his position, the Chairman of Petroleum Resources, Downstream Joseph Akinlaja disclosed that the Minister of State for Petroleum Ibe Kachukwu failed to appear before the committee to defend the budgets of the ministry and that of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
Akinlaja said his committee sent a letter four times to the minister and rescheduled the defence in order to make it convenient for the minister to ensure a peaceful collaboration between the executive and the legislature and to have a mutually agreeable time.
He said this never achieved any result as the minister only sent a team of his officials from the ministry and NNPC because he was away on official engagement.
The Appropriation Committee chairman, however, assured that the committee will wait for nobody again as it was ready to ensure it was passed as quickly as possible.
He said in the next one week, the figures will be reconciled and the House will align the budget with the policy thrust of government, adding that it was not going to wait for the Senate again having waited for one week to ensure the the Senate met up with the House.
He noted that some of the committees that are yet to present their budget reports were a result of the problem of harmonisation with the Senate, adding that the House will no longer wait for the Senate.
Jibrin regretted that going by the budgetary allocations to the critical sectors, there was no evidence that government was serious with the diversification of the economy especially in the area of solid minerals.
He said the committee would work assiduously on the 2016 Budget defence reports and make the necessary adjustments in order to save the country’s dwindling economy.
The appropriation chairman promised that the committee will look into various budgetary allocations to key sectors of the economy to ensure they are aligned with the policy thrust of the government.
-Vanguard
