Senate gives condition for passing 2011 budget

The Senate has warned that it will not approve the 2011 budget until the revenue profile of a large number of government parastatals which seem to operate independently, are included.


The Senate President, David Mark, gave the warning yesterday about one week after the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, told President Goodluck Jonathan the same thing during the budget presentation ceremony last week.
According the two leaders of the National Assembly, some 31 government agencies - most of them revenue generating companies - operate their annual budgets outside the national budget bill contrary to the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
"We will not go ahead to approve this budget without these 31 parastatals," Mr Mark said, during the concluding part of the second reading of the 2011 appropriation bill.
"There is no way in which they can carry on generating revenue and spending it the way they want as if they are running a government of their own. You cannot have a government within a government, all government affairs must be approved by the two chambers," he added.
The decision to pry into the budgets of these government agencies reportedly began after the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, angered the lawmakers with his refusal to withdraw his comments that 25.4% of the nation's overhead is spent by the National Assembly.
The CBN, the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria Customs and Excise and the Raw Materials Research and Development Council are amongst the 31 "independent" organisations targeted by the lawmakers.
Blames for budget failure
The senators blamed the government for the slow implementation of the budget and offered various panacea; ranging from starving under-performing ministries of fund to strict oversight in the coming year.
The Senate president however told his colleagues that they all share in the blame for under-performing budgets.
"We also have to share in this blame when budgets are not implemented; we do not bring them to the floor here and we become a part and parcel of the problem with the executive," Mr. Mark said, adding, "But I think we must ensure that the 2011 budget is fully implemented. If it is one kobo that is there, the one kobo is spent in the way it is spelt out in the budget not on paper. It does not matter how beautiful the budget is on paper, if we cannot translate it to the reality on ground, it is just as good as no budget at all; and that is where I think we come in; our various oversight functions must ensure that budgets are properly implemented."
Key issues
The senators identified power and security as the key issues that must be solved by the 2011 budget. It noted that without these, every other economic developmental intentions of the government in the budget would be fruitless.
"If we can get power right and if we can get security right, the wealth will follow naturally. As long as we cannot get the power right we can preach any amount of gospel from now till tomorrow: there can be no national development because that is really the key to national development all over the world now," the Senate president said.
Source:http://234next.com/