The Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Budget and Research, Timothy Golu, has ruled out
the possibility of passing the 2018 budget into law before the end of the year.
According to him, the late submission of the MTEF to the National Assembly, as well as refusal to comply with relevant laws guiding budget preparations, had always been the cause of challenges dogging Nigeria’s budgeting process.
The Senator recalled how in 2016, the Senate returned the MTEF to the Executive arm of government, due to lack of supporting documentation and details.
Golu, who spoke in Abuja, explained that the December 31-target cannot be realised due to the poor implementation of the 2017 budget, regretting that while the government said they have released funds, most of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies said they have not seen cash.
He said: “Lack of money is not the main problem, the government is slow in taking a decision, it is slow in coordinating the Agencies, it is slow in coordinating its policies. The government is just slowing down most of these things.
“I believe that if the government can accelerate action, if there can be proper coordination between the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office, and then the MDAs, these things could be sorted out.”
The Lawmaker decried the situation whereby everybody in the Executive is saying different things, stressing that they are not on the same page, as far as budget data is concerned.
“So that is part of the problem; I do not see us passing this budget before the end of the year, because we need to do a good job. They have not submitted it, yet they are talking about the passage.
“We are yet to start work on MTEF-FSP; the relevant Committees are about to work on the MTEF-FSP now, which should precede the submission of the main budget; so it means that we would be handling the budget together with the MTEF-FSP, which to us is not the problem, because we can do it.
“But to have enough time for the various Committees to do their work, it would be difficult to pass this budget before December 31, because if we rush now and do an untidy job, Nigerians would not be happy. So, we need enough time to handle the items one by one, because the National Assembly more than ever before, is putting an eagle eye on every item”, he remarked.
Furthermore, the Legislator disclosed that the House of Representatives is doing what is referred to in port parlance, as destination inspection of the budget items, stressing that since it is a law, “if we do not do it well, the implementation would be bad, and it would affect all of us.”
He disclosed that the leadership of the National Assembly has resolved to sit down and analyze in details every item, so that by the time it becomes law, you know that it would be implementable.
“That in itself is a problem, because there should be a clear implementation of the 2017 budget, to give way for the coming budget, because if the previous budget is not implemented, then there would be no clearance for the new budget to take off. So, if they want to harmonize or roll over some things, I just do not know how they are going to do it.”
