Senate rates executive on 2012 budget •Says implementation stands at 21.5%

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Senate rates executive on 2012 budget •Says implementation stands at 21.5%

Written by Ayodele Adesanmi, Abuja Wednesday, 01 August 2012

THE Senate, on Tuesday, disagreed with the executive over implementation of the 2012 Appropriation Act, as it insisted that the budget has only been implemented up to 21.5 per cent.

Also, the absence of the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-lweala, at the interactive session organised by the Senate on the challenges of budget implementation, forced its Committee on Appropriation to reschedule the meeting till Thursday.

Chairman of the committee, Senator Ahmad Mohammad Maccido, who commented on the low level implementation of the budget, noted that the avoidable friction between the executive and the legislative arms should be resolved as soon as possible.

Maccido noted that the meeting was scheduled to bring about a platform for resolving the differences, but expressed dismay that the indices on budget performance had not shown appreciable progress.

According to him, “the basic aim of this interaction is to clear doubts and put records straight, as well as to know (if any) what may constitute hindrance to the budget implementation and how it can be curbed.

“We are in the third quarter of the year and expecting discussions on the conceptualisation of the 2013 Appropriation Bill. Yet, we are at a loss on the level of performance of the 2012 Appropriation Act. We wish to know where the problems lie. When the cause of an ailment is known, the solution is near.”

Also speaking, Senate President, represented by his deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, expressed worry over the low level of implementation of the budget.

He noted that it was wrong for the executive to be looking for excuses for its failure to implement the budget as passed, by accusing the legislature of presenting a budget that had been overburdened with impracticable proposals.

“I recall that when the 2012 budget was presented to us as a draft bill, we in the National Assembly decided that we were going to do everything possible to send it back to the executive the way it came, so that there would be no argument on whether it would be implemented or not, because, over the years, we’ve had this issue of non-implementation of the budget. And the reason they gave was on the National Assembly input. So we decided that we were going to make minimal input, if there’s need to make any input at all,” Ekweremadu said.

“One of the excuses we’ve read from the pages of newspapers for non-performance of the budget is what they considered as the tinkering of the budget by the National Assembly. What we had wanted to do today is to hear from the executive what those tinkerings are. Let us hear and let the people of Nigeria hear what the National Assembly did to the budget that made it impossible for it to be implemented so that our committee chairmen here would have the opportunity of responding,” he added.

On the absence of Okonjo-Iweala at the sitting, Ekweremadu said that though the parliament was informed of her absence, it was not too good that she shunned the meeting, adding that it was imperative for her to show up at the hearing, to explain the reasons for the non-performance of the budget.

“So for now, we are disappointed that it’s not going to take place. I have the mandate of my colleagues to adjourn this public hearing to enable the Minister of Finance to show up and, as I said, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriation should take immediate steps including, if possible, summoning the minister to show up before it and other relevant committees by Thursday,” he said.

The meeting was rescheduled to hold by 1.00 p.m tomorrow.

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