The House of Representatives
has explained the delay in the passage of the 2018 budget.
The Chairman, Committee on Rules
and Business, Rep. Emmanuel Orker-Jev said the situation was because the
national assembly insisted on proper scrutiny of the proposal.
He said that Ministries,
Department and Agencies (MDAs) had refused to go before relevant committees of
both chambers of the assembly to defend what they put in the budget.
“Only last week, it was reported
that the President directed the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF)
to direct all the MDAs which had failed to defend their budgets to come and do
so”, he told NAN.
“A budget that has not been
defended by some agencies cannot be passed like that; we are not rubber
stamps.
“Don’t forget, the executive arm
of government takes all the time they have to prepare the budget and bring it
to the national assembly, and then the pressure comes on the assembly.
“If people get to understand the
work of the national assembly, they will be more appreciative”, he said.
Orker-Jev added that if the
budget was not defended, “the responsibility that the national assembly is
allocated in section 4 of the 1999 Constitution will not be discharged.
“The parliament passed the
National Assembly Budget Research Office (NABRO) Bill.
“The idea behind that law was
that among other things, the legislators will interface with the executive so
that by the time the budget comes to the National Assembly, there will be
understanding on both sides of the bargain.
“Therefore, no much time will be
taken at arriving at a conclusion.
“The presidency for some reasons
returned that NABRO bill so we are back to square one, where we will have to
wait for the executive to take all the time to prepare the budget and present
it.
“I think when the structure of
this whole budget thing is put in a better shape we will begin to talk of
passing it in time.
“But, the nation is not helpless;
the law states that if the budget is not passed you can go for six months to
spend based on the estimates of the last budget.
”So, it is not as if the nation
will grind to a halt if the budget is not passed.
“It is only when the six months
elapses and the budget is not in place that the nation will be in trouble
because by then everything would have come to a halt. But that is not the case
right now.
“Ultimately, I think we will get
to a situation where a budget will start from January and end in December, but
we have not had that since the inception of Democracy.
“We always have it over lapping
into the next year. Nothing is lost anyway, apart from the ideal situation of
the budget running from January to December.
“For instance, if the budget is
passed in June, its implementation will run till another budget is put in
place; so nothing is lost.”
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