BEVERLY HILLS, October 05, (THEWILL) – The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly on Thursday stated that it would not allow the Executive arm to embark on the selective implementation of projects in the 2017 budget “under the guise of completing priority projects”.
This was as it considered and adopted the report of its Joint Committee on Appropriation and Finance over its meeting on Tuesday with the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; and Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma, on the implementation of the 2017 Budget.
The Senate panel said it observed that the Executive arm of government had decided to focus on completion of priority projects that were near completion instead of implementing the budget as passed.
Reeling out findings of the committee, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Danjuma Goje, “The Executive claimed it is awaiting the resolution of the National Assembly on external borrowing to enable them borrow externally to finance part of the capital component of the budget.
“This is because external debts have longer tenures and lower interest rate,” he said, adding that the panel also observed that efforts were being made to have the 2018 budget proposal laid before the National Assembly in October 2017, with the hope that same would be passed in December for implementation to commence in January.
Some other observations made by the committee were that: “60 percent of the capital component of the 2017 budget may be rolled over to 2018, with the expectation that it will commence in January 2018.
“The shortfall in personnel costs of some agencies are as a result of either error in the budget or unapproved employment of staff. This is being investigated by the Executive with a view to addressing the problem.
“There are revenue leakages of operating surpluses that Agencies are not remitting to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.”
On its recommendations, the joint committee resolved that ”necessary steps should be taken to ensure that the executive does not embark on a selective implementation of under the guise of completing priority projects because this will offend the spirit of the appropriation act.”
Also, part of the recommendations of the panel which was approved by the upper legislative chamber, was that if Nigeria would have a January to December budget cycle in 2018, the Federal Government must not roll over 60 percent of capital projects in the 2017 budget as being proposed.
Goje however stepped down the first recommendation in the report, which read, “The committee wishes to recommend that the issue of external borrowing be resolved with the executive without further delay.”
In his contribution, the Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan, said that instead of prioritising projects, the executive should work towards implementing a larger percentage of the 2017 budget.
“I believe that we can perform more than 40 per cent by December. We should continue to engage the executive arm of government on how we will achieve more than 40 per cent.”
Six of the recommendations were accepted, while the only one rejected was the recommendation stating that “the issue of external borrowing be resolved without further delay”.
President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, stated there was no pending request for external borrowing with the chamber.
“Let me also clarify this because I was involved by the Chairman of Appropriations; that when the Minister of Finance came, she suggested that there were some requests before us on external borrowing.
“I just want to make it clear that there is no request on external borrowing that has not been acted upon. It must be that the letters have not left the Executive to come to us.
“I think it is important that we don’t delay such an important issue. If you remember, at the end of the last session – on the last day, we treated requests from the states and those on the railways.
“There are no pending requests from Mr. President or, when he was away, from the Acting President on external loan,” he said.
