Posted by From BASHIR UMAR, JAMES OJO and ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Abuja on
The Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the 2008 Appropriation Bill, but with different figures that would be harmonized by a conference.
• Set for harmonisation
The Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday passed the 2008 Appropriation Bill, but with different figures that would be harmonized by a conference.
The Senate passed a consolidated revenue projection totaling N2, 898, 801, 095, 668.00 trillion, while the House passed N2,944,601,095,668 trillion.
Senate's version, tagged 'Budget for the Nigerian People," was N4billion more than the amount proposed by President Umaru Yar'Adua, but the House version was not given any name.
By the account of the Senate, the Federal Government was expected to use N1, 410,733,236,736.00 trillion as recurrent expenditure and N952, 297, 858, 932billion as capital expenditure for the year ending December 31, 2008.
Presenting his report before the Senate on Tuesday, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Iyiola Omisore, highlighted the recurrent allocations thus: N252.6 billion to Interior; N168.6 billion to Education; N158.05 billion to Defence and N89.45 billion to Health, while the capital allocation expends N199.6 billion on Transportation; N126.4 billion on Energy N119.3 billion on Agriculture and Water Resources; N61.85 billion on Federal Capital Territory; N60.20 billion on Health and N52.32 billion on Education.
Also giving the summary of the key assumption to which the year 2008 Appropriation Bill was predicated, Omisore based the benchmark for the crude oil sales at $59 dollars instead of the executive proposal of $53.83 dollars per barrel. It left the $2.45 million barrels per day as proposed by the executive, just at it allowed $4.97 billion as joint venture cash-calls; 11 percent GDP growth rate; 8.5 percent inflation rate and N117 to a dollar exchange rate.
Omisore stated, 'the review of the oil price benchmark, the capturing of other revenues not captured by the Executive and the inclusion of revenues brought forward as at January 1, 2008 enabled the committee to moderately adjust upward the expenditure envelope."
As the Senate passed the Bill, Senate President David Mark said: 'I want to thank the Senate Committee on Appropriation for this wonderful job. I have been in the National Assembly since the last nine years and I can say that this is the best budget that has been produced in terms of revenue project. The delay is worth it. It is our desire that this budget is strictly adhered to through our eagle-eyed oversight functions."
Also shading light on why it took some time to pass the budget, Omisore noted that the committee had 'corrected some technical hitches in the computation of the executive budget, reduced the implicit deficit in the budget and addressed infrastructural bottlenecks that were either omitted or insufficiently addressed."
He observed: 'Even in the years of buoyancy, the ministries, departments and agencies of the government simply could not implement their capital votes and some cases expenditures could not match with projects, and this has its toll on the welfare of Nigerians in general and our individual constituencies in particular."
'A comprehensive review of budgetary practices in Nigeria over the last decade reveals that budget failures are routed in the general lack of adherence to standard budget procedures and practices."
He noted that oversight functions of the National Assembly seemed to have been regarded as 'legislative courtesy visits", adding: 'Where there were attempts to undertake oversight functions in the spirit and objectives thereto, as enshrined in the constitution, it had been frustrated by various antics and bickering."
He stressed, however, that the National Assembly would have to rise to the challenge of sustained, intensive, effective, efficient, all-year round monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the Appropriation Act by all organs of government and full compliance with the provisions thereto.
Henceforth, he announced, the National Assembly would 'strengthen all tools of legislative oversights for requiring the disclosure to the National Assembly on quarterly basis, all internally generated revenue by government agencies; requiring the disclosure of all foreign and or extra-budgetary assistance given to any agencies in any form whatsoever as well as the timely release of funds for the implementation of the 2008 Appropriation Act by the Federal Ministry of Finance, and immediate implementation of the Act by all agencies immediately funds are released without any form of delay whatsoever."
In addition, he said, all government agencies would be required to furnish the National Assembly with detailed information on projects under the 2008 Appropriation Act, which may not be implemented during the fiscal year and the funds appropriated thereto.
'The National Assembly would require the department of government responsible for due process certification to complete the process of certification within 30 days of receipt of application and communicate its observations and approval to the agency of government accordingly", the Omisore report said.
The report said that the committee would also originate a bill for an act to compel contractors to use made-in-Nigeria goods and Nigerian human resources in executing government projects wherever such resources are available.
Presenting the House version, Chairman of Appropriation Committee, Hon Festus Adegoke, said that the budget was delayed because of the new initiatives to explore, in detail, the revenue status of the nation, adding that it entailed extensive consultations with various arms of government and stakeholders.
He said that the key assumptions on which the 2008 budget was premised were benchmark, crude oil production joint cash calls, GDP growth, inflation rate, exchange rate, net total revenue to the federation account, total non-oil revenue and total deficit.
Based on revenue projections, he said that the committee reviewed the statutory transfers, debt service, MDA's total spendings, recurrent expenditures, capital projects and CRF, bringing the total estimates to N2,944,601,095,668.
Against the seven-point agenda of the Yar'Adua administration, the House shared the budget's capital allocations to energy, 114.98; transportation 106.75; agriculture 29.37; internal security 25.66; FCT, 23.9, science and technology, 21.32, defence, 17.41 and health, 10.84 percent.
A special grant of N8.33 billion was made for Niger Delta, which drew reactions from members from the northern parts, some who asked for special grants for desertification and erosion, among other natural disasters.
The areas of differences in what the Senate passed and that of the House were in allocation to defence, information and communication, justice, votes for the Senate and the House, judgment debts, transportation, energy, agriculture and water resources.
The House named Adegoke, John Eno, Umar Karfi, Isa Hashiru, Igi Aguma, Tsegba Tengu, Habib Fashinro, Bello Suleiman, Danbata Labaran, Mohammed Abdul and Lynda Ikpeazu to meet the Senate for harmonization.