The major points of disagreement are the benchmark for the budget which the House of Representatives unilaterally increased from $75 to $82, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for 2013-2015 and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).
President Goodluck Jonathan was scheduled to present the budget proposals to a joint session of the legislature last Thursday but had to shift it at the instance of the Reps who said they needed more time to study MTEF and the FSP with a view to understanding the projections and assumptions on which the budget was based.
The House Joint Committee on Finance, Legislative Budget and Research, National Planning and Economic Development and Loans, Aids and Debt, in a report obtained by The Nation, rubbished almost all the assumptions on the MTEF and FSP submitted to the House by the Presidency.
The House said it was acting in line with Section 11 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 which requires the Federal Government to prepare and lay before the National Assembly for consideration and approval, a medium-term Expenditure framework for the next three years (2013 -2015 in this case).
The position of the House has not gone down well with the Presidency and officials of the Federal Ministry of Finance who are angry that all the efforts they put into preparing the MTEF, FSP and the budget proposals were rubbished by the Reps.
It was gathered yesterday that the Senate may align with the House of Representatives on the issues at stake.
The senators say believe that under the law, the National Assembly is empowered to approve the MTEF and FSP as parameters for formulating the budget,whereas the budget was prepared before the MTEF and FSP were sent to them and the Reps.
Central Bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido, appearing before the House of Representatives on Wednesday, described the decision of the Reps to increase the benchmark as wrong while officials of the Ministry of Finance say it is a negation of the principle of good planning.
Chairman of the House Joint Committee on Finance, Legislative Budget and Research, Alhaji Abdumumini Jibrin, faulted Sanusi’s submission.
He said: “Why do we have a problem with increasing the benchmark? This will reduce deficit and the money generated will be tied to the provision of services and projects that we are currently borrowing to address.”
The joint committee, in justifying the increase of the benchmark said it “will lead to an increase in oil and gas revenue from N7,250.516 billion to N7, 963.436 billion. The $7 increase in the benchmark will increase Federal Government’s share of revenue from N3,561.02 billion to N4,137.31 billion.
“The revenue target of the Nigeria Customs Service should be increased from N914.366 billion to N1,018.310 trillion, while the target for FIRS and Federal Government of Nigeria Independent Revenue (FGNIR) could be retained as proposed in the document. This increase will make total non-oil revenue to rise from N3,298.46 billion to N3,523.82 billion.
However, a high ranking official in the Ministry of Finance told The Nation that the benchmark adopted by the Reps is overly optimistic. “It’s just not good for the country,” he said, adding: “Under IBB, there was a period when the price of oil crashed to $8 per barrel. And for two years during the reign of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, the price of oil crashed below the projected benchmark and it was the savings during Obasanjo’s time that the Yar’Adua administration fell back on. The $85 benchmark is against the principle of good planning.”
Sources said yesterday that the Presidency would stick to its MTEF assumptions such as : oil production, 2.52 million barrels per day; crude oil benchmark, $75 per barrel and exchange rate, N160/$1.
Presidency officials are reading ulterior motive into the action of the federal legislators.
The senators and reps, a source alleged, appear to have a “hidden agenda to frustrate the presentation of the 2013 budget.”
While the two chambers of the National Assembly have tentatively agreed to host the President on Thursday next week for budget presentation, there are speculations that the Presidency is already considering delegating the Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Joy Emodi to lay the budget before the National Assembly if the delay continues.
“The ball is now in the court of the National Assembly. Nobody will blame President Jonathan if the budget is not presented early enough for the consideration of the National Assembly,” said the source.
“The President has signalled his preparedness to present the budget but those who are to receive the document thought otherwise.
“Who knows what the lawmakers would come up with after looking at the MTEF?
“The MTEF may be tinkered in such a way that would make nonsense of the entire document.
“If that happens, it will mean the Ministry of Finance and other relevant agencies going back to the drawing table to rework the budget.”
The Presidency and the National Assembly have always had confrontation over attempts by the legislators to tamper with the benchmark adopted by the executive and the infusion of constituency related projects by the legislative arm.
The Reps are currently on a verification tour of capital projects across the country slated for execution under the 2012 budget.
The tour, according to them, will guide the House in prioritising budgetary allocation in the 2013 appropriation.
The Nation learnt that the Reps are generally disappointed at what they have seen of the projects. Their view is that the level of implementation is low.
For instance, the House committee on Airforce, headed by Hon. Kenneth Edet Archibong discovered that of the N5 billion appropriated for the Air Force in the 2012 budget, only N1.8 billion has so far been released and cash-backed as at the third quarter of the year.
The underfunding, he insists, is responsible for the low level of the implementation of the capital projects of the Airforce.
The House committee of Environment, headed by Hon. Uche Lillian Ekwunife, believes the current flooding in many parts of the country was caused partly by underfunding of the ministry.
A lawmaker, who does not want to be named revealed to The Nation that the situation is dire. “And now that we are in the last quarter, the general opinion is that not much can be achieved.”
The committee chairmen have been briefing Speaker Aminu Tambuwal on their findings.
The Nation
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