Experts: Implement budget and forget explanations

Time is of essence. Anything that speeds up the budget implementation process makes eminent sense. Explanations at Town Hall meetings cannot solve the immediate needs of the economy, because there is nothing to explain.”

With these words, a lawyer and fiscal governance expert, Eze Onyekpere, lamented how misplaced priorities and fight over trivialities have been setting the nation’s development plans backwards, adding that now is the time for the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, headed by Senaataor Udo Udoma, to be focused on preparing the 2017-2019 MTEF and the background to the 2017 federal budget estimates.

Still there were indications that the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) is not happy with the prolonged delay in signing and implementing the 2016 budget four months into the fiscal calendar, which they describe as sour taste, as well as sad development.

The body’s Director-General, Segun Oshinowo, according to a report, bared his fangs over the recurring development, especially, current budget, which is tending towards a record of delay.

Olusegun Oshinowo

For him, it is still a cause for concern why those responsible for drafting the document and others involved in the rest of the processes would not complete their duties and get approval before the beginning of any fiscal year.

From controversies over budget padding, withdrawal and substitution, legislative appropriation, allegations of removal of line item and implanting of others with huge allocations to the logjam at the point of the document’s assent by the President, the challenges seem endless, while more economic crisis lurks around.

For one thing, four months have gone out of the lifespan of the 2016 development plan, leaving eight months. Most of the capital projects in the budget, as contained in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, also have lifespan. With the loss of months, it is obvious that document’s implementation is fast becoming Herculean task, as usual, with capital expenditure projections retaining the under-performer rank.

“With the ‘change’ in focus, it is imperative to put ongoing controversies behind, as a way to hasten up the process of the country’s economic revival, especially, the Lagos-Calabar Rail Line and similar issues, must be in their proper legal and normal contexts to let the work begin. What then, is the essence of Town Hall meetings, when nothing has been done? It is more like ‘jumping the gun,’” a politically exposed person who pleaded anonymity, said.

But Onyekpere added: “Under the Nigerian law, the constitutional provision (vide section 81 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999) makes it clear that it is only the President who shall cause to be prepared and laid before each chamber of National Assembly (NASS) the estimates for the next financial year.

“The President having presented, withdrawn and substituted the estimates for 2016, no minister or head of any public agency has the right to bring a supplement during budget defence session. The proper thing should have been for the President to submit a further amendment to his estimates. Thus, to state that the Lagos-Calabar Rail Line was in the estimates submitted to the NASS is an attempt to distort facts. Indeed, a supplement assumes there is an already passed budget.”

To put matters straight, in the 2016 estimates posted on the website of the Budget Office of the Federation for the Ministry of Transport, there is nothing like the said “Rail Line”, which is currently in the middle of the controversies.

But a statement by a civil society group — Centre for Social Justice — over the budget controversies, flayed the statement credited to the Minister of Budget and National Planning that the Rail Line was omitted in error in the national estimates, saying it goes to show the quality of work that went into the preparation of the budget and the undergirding 2016-2018 MTEF.

“If the MTEF was grounded on proper sectoral strategies prepared by sectoral teams with all stakeholders on board, the probability of forgetting such an important project would be minimal.

“The allegations of projects and activities, which were either reprogrammed or their funds reduced or increased or even the allegation of new projects introduced into the budget shows the poor or limited consultation and collaboration between the executive and the legislature in budget preparation and approval. In as much as the legislature has no right to write a new budget, it would be incredible to imagine the legislature as a rubber stamp of executive proposals,” Onyekpere said.

For the group, the leeway to end the lingering argument is for the President to assent to the budget bill as presented and thereafter send a supplementary budget for projects that have been left out or an amendment bill to re-programme funds in his areas of concern.

“In the event the President thinks that this is not the proper thing to do, he should immediately initiate dialogue with NASS, setting out the areas of concern, so as to resolve the logjam. But this dialogue must not be delayed further.

“This position is based inter alia on the following facts:
• That we are in the middle of the second quarter of 2016 and any further delay is like laying a granite foundation for the failure of the 2016 federal budget. Time is of the essence.
• Challenges to the implementation of outdoor capital projects due to weather conditions have already set in considering that the rains are here with us. Thus, anything that speeds up the budget implementation process makes eminent sense.
• This is the time that the Ministry of Budget and National Planning should be focused on preparing the 2017-2019 MTEF and the background to the 2017 federal budget estimates. Recall that the MTEF, by law (section 14 (1) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, should be considered and endorsed by the Executive Council of the Federation before the end of the second quarter in June.
• Nigerians, investors and the international community need to get the economic bearing of Nigeria in 2016, which the budget should provide. The recent call by the International Monetary Fund for Nigeria to resolve her budget logjam and have an assented budget shows the opinion and concern of the international community about the budget crisis.
• The rising inflation, weak economic growth and increasing unemployment call for governmental action through the deployment of budgetary resources. This will only be possible when the budget becomes law.