On Monday 11 January, Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Media and Publicity, Abdulrazak Namdas had to speak out on few issues that are threatening the image of the House of Representatives. The issues have to do with the lower house’s handling of the 2016 budget. First it was the dust over the controversial disppearance of the budget. The controversy was emanated from the Senate.
While the Senate ultimately pointed accusing fingers at the Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly to the president, Senator. Ita Enang alleging that he tampered with the original version of the all important document presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to a joint session of the National Assembly on December 22 2015, the House insisted it had already distributed copies of the budget to members even as it had absolutely no complaints.
Still in the midst of flying speculations, including suggestions the adjustment made in the budget was the allocation for the operations of the presidential villa, Speaker, Yakubu Dogara took to his Twitter handle to dismiss the rumour of a “missing” budget to be April Fool coming earlier than its traditional date of April 1st.
And when in a turn of events, the Speaker finally read the letter from President Muhammadu Buhari informing the House of the updated version of the budget a mild drama played out with the main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) criticising government for the untidy handling of the budget.
Plenary on Tuesday January 26 also saw the lawmakers locking horns over the 2016 Appropriation bill. Though the document passed second reading that day, it wasn’t without lawmakers from the PDP picking holes in the bill.
Leading the onslaught on the last day of the debate on the budget, House Minority Leader Leo Ogor said it was disappointing that something as fundamental and important as the sum total of the budget was wrongly presented.
Ogor who offered to borrow the House his calculator to calculate what he said was the correct amount for the sum total of the budget, contrary to the document presented by President Buhari which has the sum total of the budget at approximately N6.077 trillion, the budget total stands at N6.33 trillion.
“We have before us a budget of N6.077 trillion. But the bill before you, I calculated to be N6.33 trillion and I stand to be corrected. I can give you my calculator and maybe you can work it out” he said.
Despite the back and forth, lawmakers unanimously passed the bill when put to a voice vote by Speaker Yakubu Dogara and on Thursday 28th January, the House commenced on a two week break from plenary to resume on Tuesday 16 February. The break is traditionally called to give committees ample time to work with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on the 2016 budget at the committee level.
But on a disappointing note, majority of committees have carried out hearings on the 2016 Appropriation Bill secretly giving room for speculation that lawmakers want to ‘pad’ the budget, far from the prying eyes of the media.
As at the time of filling this report, the fourth day of budget hearings, only the Committees on Interior chaired by Jagaba Adams Jagaba and that on Aviation led by Nkiru Onyejeocha and Tertiary Institutions which has Aminu Suleiman formally invited the media for the budget defence of the MDAs under their supervision.
Thursday 11th is a good example of the snub of the media by lawmakers. On the day, the committees on Governmental Affairs, Solid Minerals, Health and Power hosted MDAs for their budget defence with not a single invitation to the House press corps.
The Aviation committee adjourned it’s hearing following reports of the Bristow Helicopter crash in Lagos. However in the case of the Interior committee, lawmakers grilled officials of the ministry and it’s agencies. According to the NIS budget proposal, from the sum of N48,313,901,935 proposed for 2016 fiscal year, the sum of N35,401,646,184 is for personnel; N1,129,893,814 is for overhead while N11,782,361,937 is for capital expenditure.
But lawmakers queried the sum of N25,927,911 proposed for maintenance of non-functional aircrafts parked in a hangar in Kaduna state and N2,204,513 for aircraft fuel cost as well as N12,383,440 for curriculum development; N10,058,480 for medical expenses and additional sum of N15,618,205 for drugs & medical supplies as well as N9,142,390 for honorarium and sitting allowances.
While reviewing the budget proposal of the Interior ministry, the Committee queried the N6 billion special intervention fund for Police formations and command, N6.2 billion research and development, N6.5 billion for acquisition of non-tangible assets, among others.
During the hearing held by the Committee on Power which journalists walked into uninvited, the minister of Power, Lands and Works Babatunde Fashola disclosed that the federal government has accessed the $50 million second tranche of African Development Bank (ADB) budget support facility while negotiation is ongoing on $100 million HSBC and $200 million Rand Merchant Bank facilities to fund the completion of its major power projects.
Fashola identified the projects which the federal government has set a 2016 deadline to include the ongoing 3,050MW Mambilla hydroelectric power project and Zungeru 700MW hydroelectric power project.
Other projects include: 215MW Kaduna power project, 10MW Katsina wind farm project and 81 transmission projects to ensure available stranded power stations can evacuate their capacity.
The minister who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Louis Edozie explained that ministry had the total sum of N431,637,856,934 proposed for capital while N741,900,019 is for overhead for the 2016 fiscal year.
Even as the lawmakers continue with scrutinising the 2016 budget proposal, happenings chiefly among which are the falling oil prices and the position of naira against the dollars have created a lot of anxiety.
The National Assembly approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, and Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP, 2016-18 submitted by the Federal Government, basing the financial estimates on oil revenue at benchmark of $38 per barrel and exchange rate at N197/ $1. MTEF and FSP are the three-year fiscal plan from where the annual budget is extracted.
But speaking with journalists at the National Assembly, chairman House committee on Appropriations Abdulmumin Jibrin disclosed that the House has recognised the need of pegging the oil benchmark in response to happenings in the international oil market.
He said the Appropriation Committee and the Finance Committee will soon meet to set the price which will be used as benchmark in the final document to be submitted to the House by 25th February.
He said: “The benchmark has been pegged at $38 dollars and of course we know that the oil price has gone much below that figure. I am sure that during this budgeting period we will engage with the Committee on Finance and other relevant committees and we should be able to peg the benchmark at a very safe figure that should be more realistic.
“Of course, the benchmark is one of our concerns especially with regard to government revenue. In the budget, there are projections based on the non-oil sector which look very realistic. But if you go by history, we must also be extremely disciplined to make sure the projections are met month by month.
On the issue of the official exchange rate as contained in the MTEF, which has also been affected by the free fall of the naira, Jibrin said though it is the role of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to set the official exchange rate, lawmakers would meet with the officials of the apex bank on the possibility of adjusting it.
“On the aspect of the exchange rate, it is the exclusive of the Central Bank of Nigeria and we do engage them. The CBN usually comes up with justifications for pegging rates, so, we do not tamper with that. The CBN is an independent and autonomous body, but like I have said, in this budgeting period, we will engage the CBN to see if there is the possibility of adjusting it. Otherwise in terms of the exchange rate we leave it as pegged by the CBN”.
When asked the methods adopted by the House to ensure transparency in the entire budgeting process, Jibrin disclosed that the House will investigate the one trillion naira federal government payment for cash calls and production costs, stressed that it had become inevitable for government to block leakages both in the oil and non oil sectors to ensure the budget is sufficiently funded.
His words: “One very important aspect that swallows a large chunk of the money in the budget is the cash call and production costs. Many people take their eyes away from production costs, but it is critical, this because every year we pay an average of one trillion naira as cost of production.
“ It is important that this time around, we sit with relevant authorities in the oil and gas sector to see the details of this production cost, to ensure the country is not just being shortchanged and we are just mopping up a lot of money from the first line charge to give to our foreign partners”.
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