the presidency
Buhari Should Withdraw This Budget
Buhari Should Withdraw This Budget
President Muhammadu Buhari
The confusion that has trailed the
consideration of the 2016 budget
estimates of various Federal ministries
and agencies by the National Assembly
has been without parallel in recent times.
Allegations of errors, padding up of
figures, changing of whole ministries’
budgets, smuggling of strange items and
of ministers “disowning” their budgets all
combined to create a feeling that this
year’s budget submitted to the National
Assembly by President Muhammadu
Buhari was a shoddy job indeed.
The confusion started last month with the
allegation that the budget was “missing.”
The Presidency fuelled the rumour by
saying that the National Assembly must
produce the budget submitted to it. As it
turned out, Buhari’s Special Adviser on
National Assembly Matters Ita Enang had
printed copies of the budget that differed
in some details from the one the
president tabled at the Assembly. That
serious infraction was somehow hushed
up but then, a can of worms opened up as
Assembly committees began considering
the budget ministry by ministry.
Last week, the Senate Committee on
Secondary Education headed by Senator
Aliyu Wamakko said it found N10 billion
“hidden” in the budget of the Education
Ministry’s parastatals. It said while the
personnel cost for the ministry and all its
subsidiaries including schools and
colleges declined compared to that of last
year, that of parastatals recorded a
geometric progression by N10 billion.
Minister of State for Education Prof
Anthony Anwukah and the permanent
secretary were told to “go back to the
drawing board and come up with a more
sensible overhead cost.”
However, Chairman of the Senate
Committee on Higher Education Senator
Binta Masi Garba later said the N10 billion
padding discovered in the education
budget was a typographical error and that
the amount was meant for the Universal
Basic Education Commission. What an
error!
Another drama unfolded before when
Health Minister Professor Isaac Adewole
appeared before the Senate Health
Committee and disowned his ministry’s
budget, saying it had been distorted and
that strange figures were smuggled in.
Adewole asked the committee to discard
the budget before it and await a new one
that he would resubmit, which he said
would “reflect the programmes of the
health sector in 2016.” Adewole said some
issues on which a conclusion had not
been reached by the ministry got
allocations in the budget without the
ministry’s knowledge while some
important fields in the sector were
excluded.
The same thing happened when
Information and Culture Minister Lai
Mohamed appeared for his budget
defence. He disowned a provision of N398
million for the purchase of computers by
his ministry. Lai said the provision for
computers, tucked away in the budgets of
News Agency of Nigeria [NAN] and Film
and Video Censors Board, was “strange”
to him. “No, that is not possible. That was
definitely not what was proposed! This
cannot be,” the minister said.
Confusion also enveloped the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs’ budget defence when
Chairman of the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs Nnenna Elendu-Ukeje
objected to the N1.07 billion provided for
“optic fibre and satellite space segment”
and N50 million for “global
communication network computer,”
saying enough money was provided in
last year’s budget to conclude those
projects. The Foreign Ministry’s minister,
permanent secretary and director of
finance all tried to dodge Ukeje’s question
and later said they did not think it was
provided for last year but that they would
go back and check. The Foreign Ministry
also wants to spend N3.6billion in these
lean times for “posting of ambassadors
and other officers.”
Last week, Presidency officials tried to
extricate themselves from blame for all
the confusion by planting a story in the
newspapers claiming that civil servants
were to blame for padding up budget
figures and for trying to sabotage
President Buhari’s budget. Unnamed
officials were quoted as saying that senior
bureaucrats smuggled 6,000 unauthorised
items into budget and that “bureaucratic
resistance and entrenched systemic
corrupt practices dogged every move of
the presidency to produce proposals
reflecting financial prudence and
frugality.” The unnamed officials further
alleged that “the civil servants, on learning
that the presidency was considering a
large budget of possibly N8 trillion in
order to significantly increase capital
expenditure, brought a proposal of
N9.7trn for overhead and capital
spending alone” plus another proposal to
spend N2.1trn on personnel.
This attempt by the Presidency to deflect
blame to civil servants will not wash.
Politicians are the ones elected to do this
job and the buck stops at their desks. We
are not holding brief for civil servants and
it could very well be that they cooked up
an endless number of recurrent budget
items, as they are used to doing over the
years. Yet, it is the duty of individual
ministers, the Planning and Budget
Minister and the President to ensure that
the budget estimates submitted to the
National Assembly faithfully reflect the
elected government’s priorities by doing
away with frivolous items suggested by
anyone along the way.
It is very embarrassing that not one, but
several ministers should come before the
National Assembly and disown their
ministries’ budgets. It is important to find
out if the budgets the ministers now
disown were actually part of the
document that the president laid on the
table before a joint session of the
National Assembly in December. If they
were, then the Presidency owes the
National Assembly and all Nigerians an
apology for doing a shoddy job of this all
important national assignment.
As a result of this confusion, the National
Assembly has said it is no longer feasible
to pass the budget by February 25 as
earlier planned. We agree with them.
President Buhari should withdraw this
budget and mobilise all his ministers and
the Budget Office to go without sleep for
two weeks if necessary to produce a neat
and clean budget and resubmit it for
consideration. Precious time has been
lost but in the end, it is better to do a
good job than to trudge on with this
shoddy budget.
Editorial Daily Trust
Buhari Should Withdraw This Budget
President Muhammadu Buhari
The confusion that has trailed the
consideration of the 2016 budget
estimates of various Federal ministries
and agencies by the National Assembly
has been without parallel in recent times.
Allegations of errors, padding up of
figures, changing of whole ministries’
budgets, smuggling of strange items and
of ministers “disowning” their budgets all
combined to create a feeling that this
year’s budget submitted to the National
Assembly by President Muhammadu
Buhari was a shoddy job indeed.
The confusion started last month with the
allegation that the budget was “missing.”
The Presidency fuelled the rumour by
saying that the National Assembly must
produce the budget submitted to it. As it
turned out, Buhari’s Special Adviser on
National Assembly Matters Ita Enang had
printed copies of the budget that differed
in some details from the one the
president tabled at the Assembly. That
serious infraction was somehow hushed
up but then, a can of worms opened up as
Assembly committees began considering
the budget ministry by ministry.
Last week, the Senate Committee on
Secondary Education headed by Senator
Aliyu Wamakko said it found N10 billion
“hidden” in the budget of the Education
Ministry’s parastatals. It said while the
personnel cost for the ministry and all its
subsidiaries including schools and
colleges declined compared to that of last
year, that of parastatals recorded a
geometric progression by N10 billion.
Minister of State for Education Prof
Anthony Anwukah and the permanent
secretary were told to “go back to the
drawing board and come up with a more
sensible overhead cost.”
However, Chairman of the Senate
Committee on Higher Education Senator
Binta Masi Garba later said the N10 billion
padding discovered in the education
budget was a typographical error and that
the amount was meant for the Universal
Basic Education Commission. What an
error!
Another drama unfolded before when
Health Minister Professor Isaac Adewole
appeared before the Senate Health
Committee and disowned his ministry’s
budget, saying it had been distorted and
that strange figures were smuggled in.
Adewole asked the committee to discard
the budget before it and await a new one
that he would resubmit, which he said
would “reflect the programmes of the
health sector in 2016.” Adewole said some
issues on which a conclusion had not
been reached by the ministry got
allocations in the budget without the
ministry’s knowledge while some
important fields in the sector were
excluded.
The same thing happened when
Information and Culture Minister Lai
Mohamed appeared for his budget
defence. He disowned a provision of N398
million for the purchase of computers by
his ministry. Lai said the provision for
computers, tucked away in the budgets of
News Agency of Nigeria [NAN] and Film
and Video Censors Board, was “strange”
to him. “No, that is not possible. That was
definitely not what was proposed! This
cannot be,” the minister said.
Confusion also enveloped the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs’ budget defence when
Chairman of the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs Nnenna Elendu-Ukeje
objected to the N1.07 billion provided for
“optic fibre and satellite space segment”
and N50 million for “global
communication network computer,”
saying enough money was provided in
last year’s budget to conclude those
projects. The Foreign Ministry’s minister,
permanent secretary and director of
finance all tried to dodge Ukeje’s question
and later said they did not think it was
provided for last year but that they would
go back and check. The Foreign Ministry
also wants to spend N3.6billion in these
lean times for “posting of ambassadors
and other officers.”
Last week, Presidency officials tried to
extricate themselves from blame for all
the confusion by planting a story in the
newspapers claiming that civil servants
were to blame for padding up budget
figures and for trying to sabotage
President Buhari’s budget. Unnamed
officials were quoted as saying that senior
bureaucrats smuggled 6,000 unauthorised
items into budget and that “bureaucratic
resistance and entrenched systemic
corrupt practices dogged every move of
the presidency to produce proposals
reflecting financial prudence and
frugality.” The unnamed officials further
alleged that “the civil servants, on learning
that the presidency was considering a
large budget of possibly N8 trillion in
order to significantly increase capital
expenditure, brought a proposal of
N9.7trn for overhead and capital
spending alone” plus another proposal to
spend N2.1trn on personnel.
This attempt by the Presidency to deflect
blame to civil servants will not wash.
Politicians are the ones elected to do this
job and the buck stops at their desks. We
are not holding brief for civil servants and
it could very well be that they cooked up
an endless number of recurrent budget
items, as they are used to doing over the
years. Yet, it is the duty of individual
ministers, the Planning and Budget
Minister and the President to ensure that
the budget estimates submitted to the
National Assembly faithfully reflect the
elected government’s priorities by doing
away with frivolous items suggested by
anyone along the way.
It is very embarrassing that not one, but
several ministers should come before the
National Assembly and disown their
ministries’ budgets. It is important to find
out if the budgets the ministers now
disown were actually part of the
document that the president laid on the
table before a joint session of the
National Assembly in December. If they
were, then the Presidency owes the
National Assembly and all Nigerians an
apology for doing a shoddy job of this all
important national assignment.
As a result of this confusion, the National
Assembly has said it is no longer feasible
to pass the budget by February 25 as
earlier planned. We agree with them.
President Buhari should withdraw this
budget and mobilise all his ministers and
the Budget Office to go without sleep for
two weeks if necessary to produce a neat
and clean budget and resubmit it for
consideration. Precious time has been
lost but in the end, it is better to do a
good job than to trudge on with this
shoddy budget.
Editorial Daily Trust
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