Connect with us

Business

Reps spot discrepancies in budget presented by Buhari

Published

on

Jibrin moved as Dogara reshuffles House committees’ leadership

The House of Representatives on Wednesday highlighted miscalculations in the 2019 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari.

At its sitting, 42 lawmakers were observed while the house debated that the budget was marred with errors and miscalculations.

Abubakar Adamu from Niger state called the attention of other lawmakers to errors in the figures of the ministries of finance, education; budget and national planning; as well as the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

He said, “I want to, before my contribution, raise some issues, particularly some errors I noticed in the national budget. As everybody knows, the schedule in the budget consists of part ‘A’ which is the statutory transfers, and part ‘B’ which is the Debt Servicing, part ‘C’ which is the recurrent expenditure and part ‘D’ which is the capital expenditure”.

The lawmaker noted that in the Ministry of Education, the recurrent expenditure which consisted of both the personnel and overhead cost, was N462.2 billion.

He stated that under the summary of the budget by the MDAs, (line item Number 410518), the figure had changed to N539bn. “I don’t know what figure was added at that level,” he stated.

He also cited the example of the ministry of finance where the recurrent expenditure was N10.8 billion, under which personnel was N7.4billion.

He, however, said the overhead had changed to N2.26billion, with the total (of personnel and overhead) put at N2.27 billion, which he faulted.

Adamu further said, “In the ministry of budget and planning, in the part ‘C’ is N9.3 billion, but when you go to the summary by MDAs, which is number 280238, personnel has now become N66.21bn. Then, overhead also changed there; it has now become N832.2bn. Then the total, which is personnel and overheard, in that aspect has now become N1.49bn.

Read also: 2019 Budget: More Troubles, OPEC Pegs Nigeria’s Output at 1.6mbd

“The capital also has changed to about N655.9bn, indicating that a total allocation of the Ministry of Budget and Planning, instead of N9.3bn, has now become N2.15tn.”

Another lawmaker, Aliyu Ahman-Pategi substantiated the observation of Adamu and raised the same observation to the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara.

Ahman-Pategi said, “If you look at the budget; in the budget of the Ministry of Finance, the detail of overhead, salary and all that, is correct. But in the summary detail on the right side column, that is where the mistake was made.”

He further explained, “Anytime we discover it (error), they (executive) can attend to it. We know that what we are discussing are the general principles. It (budget) will still get to the committee level and all those can be done.

“As for the ministry, we can get the leadership – the Minister of Finance – and the Chairman of Finance and Chairman of Appropriations to liaise with these three bodies: the Budget Office (of the Federation), the Ministry of Budget and National Planning and the Ministry of Finance.”

After consulting with the leadership of the house, the Speaker affirmed that there were irregularities in the documents and directed concerned MDAs to laise with the house committee chairmen.

The Speaker said, “After consultations by the leadership, even though it is apparent on the surface of the budget that there are so many irreconcilable differences in the figures allotted, basically we are discussing the general principles of the budget by virtues of the provisions of our rules at this time. So, we will talk about general principles at this time.

“I am sure we are not concluding the debate today (Wednesday). I will direct relevant committee chairmen to liaise with the ministries of finance and the budget and national planning, to ensure that by tomorrow, before we conclude the debate on the budget, we have the reconciled figures”.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now