YNaija Editorial: On the budget, our lawmakers have acted like public enemies

 

The 2016 budget has finally been passed – five months into the New Year.

Certainly, spin as it may, the Presidency a huge portion of the blame for the amateur-hour way this entire affair was handled, and the own-goals it scored going all the way back to the late appointment of federal ministers.

The result has been an unseemly paralysis across the country as corporates and governments have been unable to plan or spend until they fully understand what the federal government seeks to do in a nation where government is still the largest client or funder for many sectors of our economy.

But while the Presidency has its blame, the National Assembly acted both as enabler and spoiler. Enabling a petulant Presidency shift blame to an already dubious democratic counterpart, and spoiling speedy efforts to correct its mistakes and get the budget on the road.

This is clearly in character. This is after all the same National Assembly that turned basic appointment into leadership positions to blood sport, mishandling the passing of routine bills, scuttling common sense legislation and tampering with the extant laws regulating the affairs of the Code of Conduct Tribunal at the same time when the Senate President faces stubborn allegations at the same tribunal.

But the endless back and forth over the budget has yet been the most pointed example that this is not a legislature to be proud of.

The President submitted the 2016 Appropriation Bill in December 2015.

The first phase of irresponsibility on the part of the National Assembly was the allegation that the budget had gone missing. The National Assembly sold to Nigerians a ridiculous tale that the budget developed wings and flew back to the Presidency.

And while they got Nigerians distracted with endless chatter about a supposedly missing budget, it was later reported that the document was simply being reviewed by the executive.

Upon return, the National Assembly called on the heads of Ministries to come forth and defend their budgets. Instead, what we got were alarms raised by the same ministers that figures has been misrepresented by unscrupulous lawmakers.

Subsequently, the National Assembly embarked on the process of whipping the budget into shape, however. How did this end? A document that later included several inflated figures – inconsistent budgeting, outright padding.

After the Nigerian Senate on 23 March ratified the 2016 Appropriation Bill, the document was sent to the executive for presidential assent, but President Buhari discovered that there was no budget breakdown. Again, the budget was returned to our lawmakers.

When he finally received details, the President and his men came upon the discovery of more inconsistencies and removal of key projects from the document. Again, the budget had to be reworked. hence, he demanded a rework.

According to the Punch, a senior civil servant source made it clear that “Only one minister did not have any problem with the budget details the National Assembly submitted to the President.

“There are instances, where they completely removed projects and padded the budget by inserting theirs. The lawmakers should know that the budget is the document of the executive and it takes responsibility for it. The coastal railway project is one of the reasons the President is in China. N60bn counterpart funding has been provided.

“Another major area noticed was the completion of on-going road projects. While the executive in the budget provided for the completion of all major road projects, the National Assembly reduced the amounts budgeted for them and instead, inserted new road projects which studies have not even been conducted.”

What manner of men are these? How is it possible for one arm of government to end up perpetuating a series of unfortunate events that border on fraud?

In the midst of this chain of errors, rather than get to work on delivering the change that Nigerians voted, both arms of government descended into a row over this padding of the budget and the purported removal of the N60 billion Lagos-Calabar coastal rail project.

The row ended with a confession, from the spokesperson of the House of Representatives, Abdurazaq Namdas: “I can confirm to you that we are in possession of the letter from the president identifying grey areas.”

The men at the centre of the padding were the Chairmen of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Appropriations, Danjuma Goje and Abdulmumin Jibrin.

Rather than apologise for the mess, they descended into a farce, issuing a statement remarkable for its lack of self-awareness.

“We must put it on record that the details aggregated and transmitted to the executive are largely the inputs we received from the standing committees of both the Senate and the House of Representatives,” they said. “Given the foregoing, and all factors considered, we hereby state that we have had enough controversy over the 2016 budget.

“What is needful right now is a resolution of the differences and to that end, we call on our colleagues in the National Assembly to accede to the request by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari to have a second look at the details and make the necessary adjustments so that he can assent. This, in our opinion, should not go beyond this week.

“To the extent that there are already ongoing consultations, a debate about who is right or wrong is unhelpful in the circumstance; and in any case, does not advance the cause of our country men and women whose interest we have been elected to serve.”

We beg to disagree.

This debate is crucial. It is also a public referendum on the quality of lawmakers that we have and our assessment of how committed they actually are to the public interest, and to the advancement of Nigeria’s best interests.

Based on what we see from the budget impasse, that pass mark will have to be zero.

 

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