Members of the National Assembly
have inserted an average 13 projects each into the appropriation bill submitted
by President Muhammadu Buhari, the president said.
An N8.6 trillion budget proposal
submitted to the National Assembly on November 7, 2017 was increased to N9.1
trillion when it was finally passed in May.
President Buhari in his speech
while assenting to the budget on Wednesday accused the National Assembly of
tampering with the 2018 budget sent to them by cutting essential projects and
inserting non-essential ones.
Up to 6, 403 projects initiated
by the lawmakers were smuggled into the budget, Mr Buhari noted in his speech.
Both houses were quick to defend
their fortresses with the Senate noting that chairmen of committee will be
directed to submit items on the budget.
But how was this over 6, 000 projects
distributed by the lawmakers?
6, 403 PROJECTS INSERTED
President Buhari made a weighty
allegation against the lawmakers. First, he alleged that they removed some
priority projects of the federal government, replacing with theirs. Secondly,
he accused them of sabotaging the executive’s effort of regularising the
country’s budget on a January-December financial year
“It is in this regard that I am
concerned about some of the changes that the National Assembly has made to the
budget proposals that I presented. 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 N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to
them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to
N578 billion,” Mr Buhari said.
An analysis of the figures reeled
out by Mr Buhari indicates that each of the lawmakers may have gotten an
average 13 projects inserted in the budget if the ‘spoils’ were shared equally.
The National Assembly is made up
of a maximum of 469 lawmakers – 109 senators and 360 members of the House of
Representatives.
If the leadership of the two
houses decides to share projects equally, each of the lawmakers would attract
at least 13 projects each to their constituencies. However, as shown in past
investigations, the leadership of the National Assembly often
take the larger share of such projects.
These projects will be different
from the zonal intervention projects for which the lawmakers budget a N100
billion annually.
As in the 2017 budget, the
lawmakers inserted the projects into the budgets of agencies and in the
financial year employ several means to have their projects executed.
Mr Buhari also expressed concern
over the National Assembly budget which has risen by N14.5 billion from N125
billion to N139.5 billion.
The National Assembly was quick
to put up a defence.
In a statement by the House of
Representatives Spokesperson, Abdulrazak Namdas, the lawmakers said the budget
of the National Assembly “is still far below the N150 billion in the years
before 2015’’.
“Before 2015, the budget of the
National Assembly was N150 billion for several years. It was cut down to N120
billion in 2015 and further down to N115 billion in 2016.
“In 2017, the budget was N125
billion and N139.5 billion in 2018. This means that the budget of the National
Assembly is still far below the N150 billion in the years before 2015.”
In similar statement, the Senate
spokesperson said the National Assembly has “directed chairmen on committees on
appropriations to provide item by item, detail explanations on all points
raised by the President for the benefit of members of the public.”
LIKE 2017, LIKE 2018
President Buhari’s allegation has
revealed that the anomalies of insertion of projects by members of the National
Assembly, which formed the core of controversies in the passage of the 2017
budget, have not been corrected.
In 2017 when Mr. Buhari was away
in London for medical treatment, the issue of insertion of projects by the
National Assembly came up prompting a high profile meeting between the
leadership of the two arms of government.
The meeting between the
leadership of the National Assembly and the Executive, led by the then acting
president, Yemi Osinbajo, resolved that Mr. Osinbajo should proceed to sign the
budget while also submitting a virement proposal to the National Assembly.
The lawmakers promised to
favourably and urgently consider the request.
On July 18, 2017, Mr Osinbajo
wrote to the National Assembly seeking the removal of the projects inserted by
lawmakers.
The projects were itemised in a
Schedule 2 attached to the letter.
However, premuim times investigation reveal that, at least 34 of the inserted projects, which cost
N11.5 billion, were funded by the Ministry of Finance.
Both the Ministry and National
Assembly refused to comment on the allegations/
Mr Buhari, perhaps deciding to
take a rare conciliatory approach, in his Wednesday speech expressed his will
to remedy the situation.
“However, it is my intention to
seek to remedy some of the most critical of these issues through a
supplementary and/or amendment budget which I hope the National Assembly will
be able to expeditiously consider,” he said.
CONTINUATION OF FEUD
The Chief Executive of Connected
Development (CODE), Hamzat Lawal, said the alarm from the executive is only a
degeneration of the feud between it and the legislature.
“If they were in good terms,
nobody will hear about budget cut or padding. It’s because there is this
disagreement and the disagreement is not in favour of ordinary Nigerians. It’s
for their selfish interest.
“This fight between the executive
and the legislature tells you that it’s a fight between the political elites that
have been consumed by too much power. Nobody is talking about funding for the
health, education and other critical sectors, what they are concerned is how
much is accrued to them for running cost, for official travels and others that
does not bring meaning to the life of ordinary Nigerians.
“It tells you that our democracy
is not moving forward. Till tomorrow, our budget is still a secret document
around power. If this process was engaging and open, then we will not have what
we are having today.”
He advised Nigerians to “start
electing the right set of people and get our budgets right.”
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