The National Assembly responded Friday to allegations that they cut allocations for crucial projects and inserted projects not included in the budget proposal. President Muhammadu Buhari had made the allegations when he signed the bill passed to his office by the legislature. The President said he signed reluctantly, apparently concerned that not doing so might affect the implementation of a budget already delivered late.
But the lawmakers, at a joint press conference addressed by Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi (spokesperson for the Senate) and Abdulrazak Namdas (spokesperson for the House of representatives). countered the president. According to them, the late delivery of the appropriation bill by the National Assembly was caused by the executive. They argued that though the budget proposal was submitted to them last November, heads of ministries, departments and agencies did not come forward for defence until about the second quarter of this year. They said even the president had to be asked to compel them to present themselves for defence.
They also faulted the claim that they cut allocations for crucial projects in order to provide funding for projects that were not too important nor listed in the proposal.
This is the way the lawmakers defended the introduction of new projects,
“Adjustments and reductions in the locations, costs and number of projects approved were made in order to address geo-political imbalances that came with the Executive proposal. The introduction of new projects was done to ensure the promotion of the principles of Federal …Character as contained in Section 14, subsection (3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended ” .
You can read the press statement here:
They also claimed that in all they did , there were due consultations with the executive through the ministry of budget and national planning.
But while Nigerians were still digesting the explanation of the lawmakers, the executive fired back.
That response authored by Femi Adesina , special adviser to the president on media and publicity said the National Assembly played the game of greed.
The whole episode sounded like the song by the late legend , Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: You be thief, I no be thief… It does not appear like the “arguments” have ended yet, at least not with the Friday exchange.
We present here Adesina’s Full Statement:
Sequel to the response of the National Assembly justifying its distortion of the 2018 Budget, the following clarifications have become necessary.
1. Throughout the budget consideration process the executive, through the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, was in touch with the National Assembly. The executive was approached by the National Assembly who indicated that they intended to increase the benchmark price by US$5, from US$45 to US$50. Out of the US$5 increase the National Assembly informed the Executive that they intended to utilize US$2 (amounting to about N170 billion) for projects selected by themselves. They asked the Executive to suggest important projects that could be accommodated with the funds arising from the balance of US$3.
2. After some consideration, the Executive was of the view that an increase in the benchmark price of crude oil to US$50 was not unrealistic and the President decided to accept this in the spirit of compromise required for a successful budget exercise. The Executive had, in that spirit, suggested that from the additional funds arising out of the US$3 increase, $1.25 from the increase should not be appropriated as expenditure, but utilized to reduce the deficit in the budget. The Executive therefore restricted itself to submitting, for the consideration of the National Assembly, important items that could be funded from US$1.75 of the US$3 increase. NASS eventually raised the benchmark price to US$51, apparently to accommodate the additional allocations to Health and NDDC.
3. The Executive is therefore surprised that with an additional sum of N170 billion Naira available for the National Assembly to spend on Constituency Projects, together with the sum of N100 billion Naira, already provided for in the Budget, that the National Assembly should feel it necessary to cut allocations to important national projects, and thereby distort the Budget, in order to further increase their allocation for Constituency projects. How much is enough!
4. The President’s position is clear from paragraph 12k of the President’s speech, where he said “About 70 new road projects have been inserted into the budget of the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing. In doing so, the National Assembly applied some of the additional funds expected from the upward review of the oil price benchmark to the Ministry’s vote. Regrettably, however, in order to make provision for some of the new roads, the amounts allocated to some strategic major roads have been cut by the National Assembly”.
