At last, the National Assembly yesterday forwarded details of the 2016 Appropriation Bill passed by both chambers to President Muhammadu Buhari for perusal and assent. Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation in the House of Representatives, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, accompanied by the clerk of the committee, Dr. Abel Onoja, had at 4.56p.m., handed over details of the 1,800-page document to the Clerk of the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa, for onward transmission to the president.
The National Assembly had, last week, promised to make available the details to the president within one or two weeks. This promise was sequel to the refusal of the president to assent to the budget unless he was furnished with the details Buhari had insisted in seeing the details of the approved budget before assenting to it.
Only the highlights were sent to the president by the National Assembly.The submitted budget totalled N6.06 trillion, following a reduction of N17 billion from the original proposal of N6.07 trillion. The highlight shows N351 billion for statutory transfers, N1.4 trillion for debt service, N2.6 trillion for recurrent expenditure, and N1.5 trillion as capital expenditure.
The N17 billion reduction in the aggregate expenditure of the budget was taken from overhead votes component of the N2.65 trillion recurrent expenditure of the budget, which has now been reduced to N2.646 trillion. The N2.2 trillion fiscal deficit was retained.
Also retained were the parameters of $38 per barrel oil price benchmark for the budget, 2.2 million barrels of oil production per day, exchange rate of N197 to a US dollar and deficit GDP of 2.14 per cent. Fielding questions from journalists shortly after the submission, Jibrin said both chambers have done a thorough job.
“Yes, we have just submitted details of the Appropriation Bill to the Clerk of the National Assembly for onward submission to the president,” he said. He called on the president to, henceforth, abide by the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act in presenting the budget on time.
“We specifically urge the president to abide strictly with provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act which stipulates that the appropriation bill be presented early so that there could be sufficient time for interactive sessions between the executive and the legislature before the commencement of committee hearings.
That way, we can avoid some of the controversies that dogged this year’s budget and add value to the entire process,” the lawmaker stated. Jibrin expressed appreciation to Nigerians for their patience, explaining that the delay was occasioned by the challenges encountered in the proposal.
“While we thank Nigerians for their patience and understanding, it is important to reiterate that it took us extra weeks to get the details ready not because there was anything untoward going on, but rather so we could correct all the inconsistencies, errors, omissions and padding in the document submitted to us in December last year,” he added.
He explained that what both appropriation committees of the two chambers have been doing was trying to strike a balance between the revenue projections and expenditure estimates. “What we have been doing, in these past few weeks, is to balance the projections for revenue against the estimates for expenditure based on the reality of our situation today,” he said.
According to him, the process of cleaning up the budget has been made very difficult by the sloppy manner in which the 2016 Appropriation Bill was prepared by the executive “such that many of the officials who came before our various committees practically disowned the inputs from their own departments and ministries.”
He, however, commended President Buhari “for showing leadership, which helped in resolving what had become a serious logjam. Some officials in the executive branch have also been removed from their duty posts because of these glaring lapses.
“That happened because the president took direct responsibility and got involved in the process, not only to ensure synergy between the executive and the legislature, but also so that we could both arrive at a budget that is implementable for the good of all Nigerians.”
The House Appropriation chairman attributed some of the problems inherent in the 2016 budget to the transition from a sitting government to an opposition party. It will be recalled that both the Senate and House passed the budget on March 23, 2016 after three months of working on it having been presented on December 22, 2015 by President Buhari. The bill has been dogged by series of controversies ranging from padding to outright loss of the document.
