…Why Nigeria fails to have implementable budget – Dogara
KEHINDE AKINTOLA
Notable members of the National Economic Team, leadership of National
Assembly and cross section of the general public on Wednesday
converged in Abuja to deliberate on the N8.827 trillion budget
proposal for 2019 fiscal year.
On his part, Speaker Yakubu Dogara noted that the public hearing was
aimed at ensuring active participation of the Nigerian public.
He tasked the Ministers to strive towards achieving 70% implementation
level against the current 45% implementation level, which he noted was
While noting that the President has the constitutional power to
initiate budget proposal, the National Assembly has the power of
appropriation.
He lamented that despite the late submission of the budget proposal
over the years, the Executive has continued to blame the Legislature
for late passage of the budget.
“It is my pleasure to address you at the opening of this 2019 National
Budget Hearing jointly organized by the Committees on Appropriations
of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Permit me to welcome
all stakeholders to this important event.
“We are all aware of the importance of a well-formulated Budget to
effective service delivery by Government. Indeed, the Budget
represents the main bond between the Government and the people.
Today’s exercise forms a very important segment in the making of the
Appropriation Act by the
National Assembly. This interactive session is in line with the
Constitutional responsibilities and Legislative Agenda of the National
Assembly which is aimed at making the budget process more inclusive
and transparent.
“The public and indeed stakeholders gathered here, must never feel
that the budget does not reflect their values, or that the process is
too cumbersome for them to understand, or that they cannot make any
difference in the process. This is why Parliament, in its wisdom,
created this opportunity for a public and stakeholder dialogue on the
budget. Therefore, we must not miss this opportunity to critically
appraise the document that is before us and proffer useful tools that
will help reshape the budget
into a document that captures national values and priorities. This is
the task before all of us today and believe me we can make a
difference if we are determined to re-write the wrongs of the past.
“By our constitutional design, the president’s role in drafting the
budget estimates cannot be assailed but the “power of the purse” is
the function of the Legislature. That includes the fact that
expenditure can only be made in consequence of express legislative
authorization and the authority to create and collect taxes, borrow or
raise money through loans when the need arises.
“Over the years, the main problem with our budget as submitted by the
Executive is that it does not reflect National values and priorities.
The budget, more often than not, only reflects the values and
priorities of those who help the president in drafting it. The
integrity of the project selection process has always being the bane
of our national budgets. I regret to say that until we eliminate these
problems, we will always have non implementable national budgets which
cannot be relied upon by
Policy makers in establishing spending priorities.
“It is very painful that for some years now, our budget process has
been an exercise in either or a combination of audacious optimism
and/or hypocrisy involving key actors putting together a budget that
they fully know will at best be implemented up to 45% which is by all
standards below average. How many of us will be proud of a child who
consistently performs bellow average in his exams? How many of us
here are proud of our below average budget performance all these
years? Our below average budget performance is the main reason why
Nigeria has remained a major promise as our national potentials cannot
be released without effective budget planning and execution.
“The budget is the most important law that is passed yearly,
consequently, no parliament anywhere in the world rushes it. Let me
re-emphasize that this Parliament can never be a rubber stamp and
neither are we prepared to surrender our constitutionally assigned
rights of checks on the Executive.
It is unfortunate, however, that many commentators always ignorantly
accuse the National Assembly of delaying the Appropriations Bill as if
we are meant to urgently rubber stamp whatever budget estimates that
is submitted to us by the Executive. If we fail to scrutinize the
budget proposals, it will not only amount to abdication of our
constitutional responsibilities as legislators but a betrayal of the
mandate of our constituents.
“Let me also add that it is very unfair for the Executive to
consistently and repeatedly blame the National Assembly of delaying
passage of the budget while failing to address the issue of late
budget submission on its part. The Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007,
provides that the Appropriations Bill be submitted not later than
September of the preceding year which will give the Parliament ample
time to process the document and pass it in good time. Unfortunately,
the 2019 Appropriations Bill was submitted on December 19, 2018, just
12 days to the end of the year and the earliest time an
Appropriation Bill has ever been presented to the National Assembly in
this dispensation was on November 7, 2017.
“Similarly, we took the bold step of addressing this challenge by
passing a Constitutional amendment Bill which sought to compel the
Executive to submit the Budget proposals to the National Assembly not
later than 90 days to the end of the fiscal year and also to limit
expenditure that can be incurred in the absence of the Appropriations
Act from six (6) months to three (3) months.
“Furthermore, in yet another effort to improve institutional capacity
of the Parliament to process and pass budget expeditiously, the
National Assembly Budget and Research Office (NABRO) establishment
Bill was passed into law. It was closely modeled after the American
Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Unfortunately, I regret to inform
this gathering that these laudable efforts and initiatives were
thwarted when the President withheld his assent to these two important
Bills. Consequently, efforts to enact a
Budget Process Bill which will spell out timelines for every activity
concerning the budget is stalled because it would be ineffective to
enact a law that will run contrary to Section 81(1) of the
Constitution which allows the President to submit the Budget
estimates, “AT ANYTIME” before the end of the financial year.
“Since this is the last Budget in the life of the 8th National
Assembly and time is not on our side, we will like to make haste
slowly. Heads of MDAs can help in this noble effort by making
appearances, in good time, before their relevant committees to defend
their estimates as some have started doing. What happened last year
when some heads of MDAs refused to appear before their relevant
committees to defend their estimates until a presidential directive
compelled them to, must never repeat itself this year. We hope to pass
the Appropriations Bill as soon as we reconvene from suspension of
plenary.
“I would not conclude until I have urged the Executive Arm to be
prepared to muster the will to honestly and diligently implement this
year’s Budget when passed into law and improve on the abysmally poor
budget performance rate that has been the hallmark of our national
budgets for many unbroken years,” Dogara noted.
He also warned Ministers not to shun invitations extended by various
standing committees in order to avoid undue delay in the passage of
the budget.
In his remarks, Danjuma Goje, chairman, Senate Committee on
Appropriation expressed optimism that the exercise will help the
“National Assembly achieve its pledge to the Nigerian people which is
tandem with the Federal Government’s roadmap as expressed in the
Economic and Recovery Growth Plan
(ERGP) 2017-2020.
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