President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s three year national fiscal plan has come under heavy criticism by members of the House of Representatives.
The document which many members described as ‘ancient’ was submitted to the House in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act which makes it mandatory for the president to submit at the appropriate time, a three-year financial projections and strategy, upon which the following year’s budget will be built.
This year’s proposal which was submitted by Mr. Yar’Adua, was called the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Strategy Paper.
It’s high sounding title, however, did not appear to have impressed the legislators who faulted most of the government indicators in the document for the years 2010 to 2012, saying the nation cannot attain the touted dream of becoming one of the largest economies if it relies on such indices.
The key issues which drew the ire of the legislators include the expected benchmark cost of crude in the document which was fixed for three years at $50 dollars per barrel.
The lawmakers were also miffed by Mr. Yar’adua’s rather modest targeted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 2.61 per cent and 4.89 per cent for the years 2010 and 2011.
A member, West Idahosa (Edo State) called the document “ancient and analogue” saying it will not propel Nigeria’s growth to the same level as that of other nations.
Mr. Idahosa also said the time had come for the legislators to do their job, “when are we going to rise up to our responsibilities of standing up against the executive?” Mr. Idahosa asked. “I think now is such a time because this document is analogous for this age and should be digitalised.”
Speaking in the same vein, Davis Sekonte, from Rivers State , said Mr. Yar’Adua’s document, “is very poor in strategy”. “This document is rich in negative projections and becomes very poor in strategy. It does not say what will be done in the event of the projected pitfalls,”
Deep analysis
In what was a rare and detailed analysis of an executive submission, many of the lawmakers questioned why at a moment of deepening economic uncertainties, the president should make projections which disregard growth in the non-oil sector and also fail to address the issue of human capital development.
During deliberations on the budget earlier in the year, Mr. Yar’Adua had told the House that the current economic uncertainties, referred to by the legislators during their debate, informed his cautious budget predictions.
It is not clear if the legislators remember this earlier presentation, but clearly they didn’t take this explanation into account because according to them, the price of oil, was not so bad, even when the nation faced the security issues in the Niger Delta region.
“Now that has improved, but the president fixed the benchmark at $50, when in reality it hovers around $70,” Ita Enang, who heads the House Committee on Rules said. “There is no economy in the world that operates like Nigeria,” Mr. Enang added.
“All our tax are oil-related, the little employment for the teeming youth, that goes away from oil is in services such as Customs, Civil Defence,” he said. “There is no plan for industrial development to provide employment even in the next three years.
Implement budgets
In the course of their discussions, the members threw up, again, the concerns they have over the non-implementation of the budget in an economy that is stagnating.
“I do not know why the executive should shy away from capital budgets that truly bring developments,” another member, Ralph Okeke, said. “When everyone is trying to grow economically, we have here a document projecting a downward in capital projects.”
Dino Melaye (PDP, Kogi) said the nation had already been deceived by the releases from the Ministry of Finance, which says the current budget had been implemented to 45 per cent. “Mere release of funds cannot automatically translate to implementation,” he said. “And the indicators stipulated here cannot take us to the promised land.”
After a rigorous debate that lasted for hours, the members agreed to hold further debates on the document, with some grudgingly conceding that this is after all only a proposal.
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