Budget: Presidency hits back at N/Assembly

The Presidency Friday night pilloried the National Assembly for justifying its distortion of the 2018 budget. President Muhammmadu Buhari had while signing the budget on Wednesday lamented that lawmakers made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects he submitted for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion. The National Assembly, in its reaction, had said it could be a rubber-stamp. Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina, in a statement, specifically chided the legislature for cutting allocations to important national projects and distorting the budget to further increase their allocation for constituency projects. Adesina clarified that throughoutt thebudget consideration process, the executive, through the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, was in touch with the National Assembly. He said the executive was approached by the National Assembly who indicated that they intended to increase the benchmark price by US$5, from US$45 to US$50. He said out of the US$5 increase the National Assembly informed the executive that they intended to utilize US$2 (amounting to about N170 billion) for projects selected by themselves. Adesina said that the legislature asked the executive to suggest important projects that could be accommodated with the funds arising from the balance of US$3. He said after some consideration, the executive was of the view that an increase in the benchmark price of crude oil to US$50 was not unrealistic and the president decided to accept this in the spirit of compromise required for a successful budget exercise. “The executive had, in that spirit, suggested that from the additional funds arising out of the US$3 increase, $1.25 from the increase should not be appropriated as expenditure, but utilized to reduce the deficit in the budget. The Executive therefore restricted itself to submitting, for the consideration of the National Assembly, important items that could be funded from US$1.75 of the US$3 increase. NASS eventually raised the benchmark price to US$51, apparently to accommodate the additional allocations to Health and NDDC,” he said. The executive us therefore, surprised that with an additional sum of N170 billion available for the National Assembly to spend on constituency orojects, together with the sum of N100 billion already provided for in the budget, that the National Assembly should feel it necessary to cut allocations to important national projects and thereby distort the budget in order to further increase their allocation for constituency projects. How much is enough! “The President’s position is clear from paragraph 12 of the President’s speech, where he said ‘About 70 new road projects have been inserted into the budget of the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing. In doing so, the National Assembly applied some of the additional funds expected from the upward review of the oil price benchmark to the Ministry’s vote. Regrettably, however, in order to make provision for some of the new roads, the amounts allocated to some strategic major roads have been cut by the National Assembly”. ]]>