Lawmakers unhappy with budget implementation

The Senate, on Wednesday, started its discussions on the 2010 budget proposal sent to the National Assembly on Tuesday by the presidency, with lawmakers complaining that the executive failed to faithfully implement the 2009 budget and others before it.

At the sitting, some 16 senators spoke on the proposed budget. All 16 senators, including the deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu (PDP, Enugu state), said they were disappointed with the executive for its inability to implement budgets and account for the monies appropriated.

The senate minority leader, Maina Maaji Lawan (ANPP, Borno State), said the issue of budget implementation has reached an embarrassing level.

“I get embarrassed when I look at the larger picture and try to see which aspect of the budget we have implemented,” Mr. Lawan said.

He said he was particularly disillusioned with the implementation levels at the road and power sector over the past two years.

Mr. Ekweremadu said it was disheartening that, “we still have more of our revenue on the recurrent expenditure side than on the capital expenditure. I believe that with monetization, this (recurrent expenditure) should have come down and increase the capital side of the budget.”

Smart Adeyemi (PDP, Kogi state) supported Mr. Ekweremadu’s view saying that the situation where recurrent expenditure doubles capital expenditure will worsen the unemployment situation in the nation.

“Today, we have an army of youth who are capable of staging a serious revolution if things continue like this.” Mr. Adeyemi said. “We cannot pretend because we are in PDP and keep quiet. We cannot pretend that all is going on well in this country.

“We should be courageous enough to tell Mr. President that we are not happy with the implementation of the 2009 budget. Let the president flush out the ministers that are not ready to perform.”

In his submission, Olorumibe Mamora (AC, Lagos State) questioned the sincerity of the executive.

“If this administration has not demonstrated faithfulness in smaller things (Budgetary allocations), how would they do it for bigger things?,” he said.

Iyabo Obasanjo was concerned that she and her colleagues will have no achievements to their names when they campaign for the next general elections.

“I don’t know what we will show in 2011 as what we have done; what shall we say during our campaign?,” she said.

Unhappy Representatives

The House of Representatives began deliberations on the proposed budget on Tuesday. By the time the budget passed the second reading on Wednesday, there were only 58 members in the chamber. Many of the members present expressed disappointment at the poor implementation of past budgets.

“As a parliament, we have sat down and prepared in the past beautiful documents, but at the end we have 30% performance,” a member, Halims Agoda, said.

“I have gone through this ritual since 1999 that I came to this house and may God come to our aid.”

An opposition lawmaker, Femi Gbajabiamila (AC, Lagos) said: “the fear I have is not whether this is a good or bad budget, but whether this is not becoming a yearly ritual.”

In the past too, lawmakers have raised concerns about the poor implementation of annual budgets.

How the House rates

The House of Representatives bases its rating on the amount of allocated funds left for each ministry with the Central Bank.

Concerning this year’s budget, the House committee on Finance said that as at November 2009, the total amount released from the bank for Ministries, Departments and Agencies stands at N700 billion, against the total N1 trillion capital allocation.

Not considering the purpose for the release of the funds or how they were released, such payments, according to the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, imply that the budget stands at 70% implementation.

Opposition members of the National Assembly and the Deputy Speaker of the House, Usman Nafada, consider this deceptive.

“These are scientific achievements,” said Mr. Nafada. “We should talk about physical developments.

Legislators share in the blame

Although most legislators criticised the executive, some said the legislature is also to blame for the poor implementation.

The constitution gives the lawmakers powers and the funds to conduct an oversight of the executive’s activities, including budget implementation.

“I have not seen us (National Assembly Legislators) as responsible,” the senate minority leader, Mr Maman, said. “We have always rushed the passage of these budgets. We should demand for answers at the end of it.”

Mr. Mamora agreed. “We need to pay greater attention to our oversight function in the implementation of budgets,” he said.

“For too long we seem to be engaged in statements of intentions, people can only benefit from reality and not the intentions of government.”

Mr Agoda said, “Even in this house, if we must check the chart of our over-sighting, there is a problem,” he said.