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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Senate approves $1.53bn loan for FG

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The Senate on Tuesday commenced the consideration of the 2011 Appropriation Bill amid reservations that the 2011 budget may also follow the routine pattern of poor implementation by the executive arm of government.
Goodluck Jonathan to enable the Federal Government borrow foreign loan of $1.537 billion out of the $3.702 billion from development partners for the provision of infrastructure in the country. Appropriation Bill, Senators that contributed to the debate opined that the delay and late arrival of the budget could affect its implementation. urged members of the upper chamber of the National Assembly to support the bill to enable the executive arm of government begin the implementation of the budget in good time next year. Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba said while attention had been focused on the National Assembly’s recurrent expenditure, the real issue remained the high cost of running governance across all levels of government. in the capital budget and a reduction in the recurrent expenditure, poor implementation of the budget would negatively defeat the efforts to reach the poor in the country. for certain when the budget will start. We have had 10 budgets since this democratic dispensation but we are yet to get a proper manner of getting the budget started from January to December.” the deliberate and late presentation of the 2011 budget proposal to the National Assembly was a clear signal that the budget might be on its way to failure as has become consistent with the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) -led Federal Government. creation proposal of N50 billion came without clear indications on how jobs would be created, stressing that a conducive environment was needed to protect investors and ensure that jobs were created. must follow every expenditure to ensure that what is provided in the budget is implemented. This is December and we received the budget on December 15. With this, the stage is set for the failure of the budget.” Accounts said it was important for Nigerians to know that the agencies of government that failed to implement their budgets were responsible for the failure of the country. with some of his colleagues, saying the National Assembly should be blamed for its poor oversight over the agencies that led to poor performance of the budget. plans to ensure periodic publication of budget implementation by agencies of government adding that “If we keep allowing the agencies to continue the way they are going, they will come back again to say we should shift the goalpost and ask us for extension to March the following year.” work towards the production of a template for the implementation of the 2011 budget. said it was time the National Assembly increased the tempo of its oversight of government agencies as a guarantee for effective budget implementation, even as she decried the absence of details of the budget, a development she noted could hamper the speedy and thorough treatment of the estimates. Bukar Ibrahim urged the Senate to go ahead to further reduce the recurrent expenditure of all Federal agencies with a view to increasing the capital budget for the benefit of ordinary Nigerians. concerns over the non-presentation of the details of the budget in addition to the incidences of poor budget implementation by the Executive arm of Government. said debates on the budget would continue on Tuesday. presenting the interim report of the joint Committees on Finance and National Planning, Economic Affairs and Poverty Alleviation that worked on the details of the foreign loan request of the Federal Government, said that the Joint Committees was unable to consider the sum of one billion US dollars from the People’s Republic of China for Abuja Light Railway and Lagos-Ibadan Railway Modernization projects. of the One billion Chinese loan giving the fact that the terms and conditions of the loan are currently under negotiation. In the same vein, the Senate Joint Committees according to Senator Bello was unable to consider the request by some State Governments as a result of the failure of the Federal Ministry of Finance to provide information on the breakdown of the loan requested for by the States and as provided by Section 42(1) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The Federal Government had in its request, said that it set aside $200 million for the financing of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and for infrastructure financing with a view to create a long term finance market out of which $150 million is for on lending to viable projects sponsors/concessionaires for 15 to 25 years. will be channeled to viability gap fund (VGF) as upfront capital projects that are commercially viable even as it equally requested for $115 million out of which $83 million is for ?provision of technical assistance, transaction advisory services while $32 ?million is for capacity building for 14 critical Ministries, Departments and ?Agencies for 27 concessions considered as priority projects. //www.sunnewsonline.com/

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Senate approves $1.53bn loan for FG

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