The House of Representatives said on Sunday that the Federal Government had no options but to implement the 2011 budget as passed by the National Assembly.
Responding to the complaints by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, last week that the N4.97tn budget was not implementable, the House vowed that it would not go back on the fiscal document.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Mr. John Enoh, and the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriation, Mr. Ayo Adeseun, told our source in separate interviews on Sunday that there were no chances that the National Assembly would review the budget.
Enoh noted that the rumours making the rounds that President Goodluck Jonathan might not sign the budget were unnecessary, as Jonathan would do so once he was apprised of the details.
He said, “The National Assembly has passed the budget and has nothing to do with it anymore.All that is left is for us to forward the details to the President. That has not been done yet.
“I am sure if the details are forwarded, the President will sign the budget.”
Enoh admitted that there were funding challenges in the budget, with much borrowing expected from an already stressed domestic market.
However, he argued that this was not a reason for Aganga to say that the budget was not implementable.
The lawmaker added, “At the best of times since 1999, the executive has not been able to implement any budget successfully. That is not an excuse. If he says we can’t implement the budget 100 per cent, that is true; but to say that we cannot implement it all is not acceptable.
“There is a budget before the Executive; the first thing to do is not for the minister to start saying that it is not implementable. Which budget have they ever implemented successfully since 1999?
“This is a budget that the aggregate expenditure is still within the range of the 2010 budget. I agree there may be funding challenges, but that is not to say that the budget is not implementable.”
On his part, Adeseun said that though he was yet to get the details of Aganga’s comments, he would say “right away, we disagree with him.”
He added that a formal reply would be made to the minister’s position “after we have consulted and studied the details of what he is saying.We shall react accordingly; but right now, we disagree with him.”
The budget, as passed on March 15 by the legislature, was raised to N4.97tn from the N4.22tn proposed by the executive.
Part of the jack-up came from the executive, which made additions totalling N312bn “to augment Ministries, Departments and Agencies’ key priority expenditure.”
On its part, the National Assembly added over N400bn to the budget size, leaving the total at N4.97tn.
For example, the National Assembly raised its own budget from N111.23bn to N232.73bn, up from the N156bn it spent in 2010.
While the executive proposal placed the oil benchmark at US$65 per barrel, the National Assembly raised it to US$75 at a daily oil production of 2.3mbps.
It left the exchange rate at N150 to US$1, same as the executive proposal.
However, Aganga had complained that the budget was “expansionary,” with a high deficit of over N1tn, adding that it placed much emphasis on borrowing as a funding source.
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