The leadership of House of Representatives, on Wednesday, vowed not to concede to plan by President Muhammadu Buhari to turn the legislative arm of government to rubber-stamp.
The House’s reaction came barely 2 hours after President Muhammadu Buhari signed the N9.120 billion appropriation bill into law.
In his speech, Buhari had accused National Assembly of introducing 6,403 projects worth N578 billion after cutting 4,700 projects worth N347 billion from the budget proposal presented to the joint session of the National Assembly in November, 2017.
The President who argued that most of the newly introduced projects fall within the purview of States and Local Governments, were not “properly conceptualized, designed and costed” maintained that they will be difficult to execute, adding that
In his reaction, Abdulrazak Namdas, chairman, House Committee on Media and Publicity however noted that the House and indeed National Assembly acted in tandem with relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which confer upon the Legislature, the power of appropriation.
“The House of Representatives is appreciative of President Muhammadu Buhari in signing the 2018 Appropriation Bill into law and wish to make the following observations:
“That the budget is usually a proposal by the Executive to the National Assembly, which the latter is given the constitutional power of appropriation to alter, make additions, costs or reduce as it may deem necessary.
“The Legislature is not expected to be a rubber-stamp by simply approving the Executive proposals and returning the budget to Mr. President. Therefore, the additions Mr. President complained of in his speech are justifiable.
“We are on the same page with Mr. President in his desire to return our budget cycle to January-December. By the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, the budget estimates should be with the National Assembly around September of the year.
“In the case of the 2018 budget, the estimates came behind schedule in November 2017, even though this attempt was seen as one of the earliest in recent years. Going forward, we urge the Executive to speed up the reporting time to the National Assembly by complying fully with the FRA.
“Besides, there were delays that should be blamed on the heads of MDAs. Mr. President will recall that he had to direct ministers and heads of agencies to go to the National Assembly to defend their proposals. This came after the National Assembly had persistently raised the alarm over the non-cooperative attitudes of these government officials. On this grounds, the delay in passing the budget cannot be blamed on the legislature,” he said.
While responding to allegations on the new projects, Namdas said: “On this aspect, we have to remind Mr. President that we are representatives of our people and wish to state that even the common man deserves a mention in the budget by including projects that will directly affect his life positively.
“Some of the projects designed by the executive, as high-sounding as their names suggest, do not meet the needs of the common man,” Namdas observed.
In response to the allegations on the N73.96 billion increase in the National Assembly’s Statutory Transfers, Namdas explained that: “before 2015, the budget of the National Assembly was N150 billion for several years. It was cut down to N120 billion in 2015 and further down to N115 billion in 2016. In 2017, the budget was N125 billion and N139.5 billion in 2018. This means that the budget of the National Assembly is still far below the N150 billion in the years before 2015.
“While we commend Mr. President for a good working relationship, we also wish to state that we have a job to do, which requires adequate funding as well. The additional costs and projects to the budget were done in good faith for the sole purpose of improving the lives of Nigerians.
“Finally, we welcome the proposal by Mr. President to forward a supplementary budget to the National Assembly to address other areas of pressing demands and commend the President and the entire executive arm for a cordial working relationship,” the Adamawa lawmaker stated.