Senate, FG disagree over cause of delay of 2018 budget

The federal government and the Senate have again presented different narratives as to what is the cause of delay in the passage of the 2018 Appropriation Bill, with both sides absolving themselves of blame.

While the Senate contended recently that the federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are the cause of the delay, by refusing to show up to defend their budgets, the federal government has argued that the Senate may not have taken the appropriate steps to ensure the heads of the MDAs do what is required of them.

Vice chairman, Senate committee on Appropriation, Sunday Ogbuoji had informed lawmakers last week, that majority of MDAs refused to turn up for their budget defence as required by law.
He noted that due to the failure of the MDAs to appear for budget defence, the budget report that could have been presented for consideration was not ready.

The senator said: “Majority of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies are not coming forward to interface with the standing committees. Some of the ministers will tell you they have a team, they are going outside the country and because of that, the MDAs are not fully ready.

“So we don’t have the reports yet. We believe that when the MDAs come forward, our colleagues will be able to finish their work. Some of the committees are unable to do their work. When they screen what they have brought, they will ask them to go back to us but they don’t come back.

“That is really delaying the work for majority of the standing committees and that is why up till today, we don’t have a comprehensive report.”

But in response, Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze, in a statement on Sunday night, insinuated that the Senate may not be totally truthful in its submission.

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He further asserted, that “To the best of our knowledge, this directive has been complied with. Should any committees of NASS still experience any issues with attendance of any MDA, the Minister of Budget & National Planning has indicated that he is available to liaise with the particular MDA to ensure full cooperation with NASS by the relevant MDA”.

According to him, his office, through the president submitted the 2018 budget to the National Assembly with detailed breakdown for MDAs, with all the usual details required by NASS to process it.

He said “we would like to emphasize, for the avoidance of doubt, that on 7th November, 2017 President Muhammadu Buhari, as constitutionally stipulated, laid before the National Assembly (NASS) the Executive budget proposals for 2018 with all the usual details required by the National Assembly to process the budget. This included the details of the budgets of all federal MDAs based on the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) budget templates”.

In response to concerns raised that the FGN Budget could be delayed by budget of Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) Akabueze explained, that federal budget “is distinct from the budget of Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) and as such any delay in the GOEs providing additional details on their budgets should not affect the early passage of the FGN Main Budget”.

It will be recalled that the Senate at one of its sittings in February, 2018 had complained that some GOEs had not submitted the details of their 2018 budget in a format acceptable to the Senate.

It therefore directed them to submit their 2018 budget details in the format required by the Senate within a week.

“Whilst the budgets of these GOEs are separate and distinct from the main Federal Government Budget, we would like to explain that their budgets were also included, as attachments, in the 2018 budget package presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly (NASS) on 7th November, 2017. However, as is sometimes the case, the respective Committees of the NASS which oversight the GOEs may require them to provide additional details to support their budget proposals. Following this observation by the Senate, the Budget Office intervened directly with the affected GOEs to obtain the details in the format requested by the Senate. Most of them have since complied with the Senate’s requirement.

“Whilst any delay in providing these additional details by the GOEs does not affect the early passage of the FGN budget, the Budget Office is following up to ensure that every GOE complies with the directives of the Senate”, Akabueze stated.

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