The 2016 Budget, the first to be crafted by this administration, has assumed notoriety for quite avoidable and unnecessary reasons. A government budget is primarily the responsibility of the Executive, subject to the ultimate power of the purse in the Parliament. The Executive, through its Budget Office, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance for fiscal inputs, is believed to have collated all the proposals from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) into the Budget Estimates that were scrutinised and approved at an enlarged Executive Council Meeting with the Permanent Secretaries and relevant technocrats in attendance. This is where the ministerial proposals in the Budget Estimates were expectedly examined, reviewed and finalised in accordance with the priorities of Government.
Upon conclusion of its work on detailed estimates of the Budget at the Cabinet Meeting, the Executive communicated with the Parliament seeking a date to present the Budget to the legislature by way of a Money Bill for appropriation as Appropriation Act, and this was done. The process of legislative power of the purse which evolved in the medieval times about the early 14th century, was confirmed by Parliament in 1341 under King Edward III and adopted by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. That we call our parliament National Assembly does not make any less a parliament; that we call it Executive Council (Federal or State) does not make any less a Cabinet, or that it is called Appropriation Act does not make it a better Money Bill. The National Assembly has the ultimate authority over expenditure of public funds, which, like all public powers, are presumed to be responsibly exercised.
Upon the presentation of the Budget by the President, it is committed to the relevant various Committees where the MDAs are expected to justify the estimates proposed for their respective MDAs approved by the Executive Council and conveyed or presented to Parliament by the President. The Executive, represented by the President, is presumed to have presented to the Parliament the precise budgetary proposals and detailed estimates approved at the enlarged Executive Council Meeting. And these are the same proposals and estimates remitted to the various parliamentary committees for defence by the MDAs. Whatever is not in the proposals and estimates presented by the Executive through the President cannot be raised, let alone defended, by the MDAs at the committee stage. A budget is presented to the Parliament by the President, not to its Committee by an MDA.
Where there is an observed error in respect of any omitted item by any MDA, like the very important Lagos-Calabar rail project, it is for MDA to raise the matter at the Executive Council level and pray for a Supplementary Budget to be presented in respect thereof. It is not an issue for inter-branch war.
It is tempting to reason that the ground for this carefreeness was set when the Parliament condoned the unprecedented informal withdrawal or substitution of the Budget, a Money Bill, presented by the Executive without the due process of formally considering and rejecting those proposals. In that case, the Executive would have had to submit a new, perhaps better, comprehensive and unpadded Money Bill which may possibly have been assented even before the President's visit to China.
It must be understood that the country is at a standstill, awaiting the Budget, and the economy is the greatest victim of this unnecessary imbroglio. The President should please sign this Budget into law and prepare a Supplementary Budget to address any other concern, including the Coastal rail project.
Comments
Post a Comment