Okonjo-Iweala’s Lecture on Budget

Fri, Jul 19, 2013

By publisher

4 MIN READ

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, minister of finance, lectures members of the House of Representatives joint committee on Appropriation and Finance, on why President Goodluck Jonathan wanted an amendment and not a supplementary budget

|  By Maureen Chigbo  |  Jul. 29, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT

THE brouhaha between the executive and the legislative arms of government over the 2013 budget resonated on July 16. In what appeared like a lecture on budgeting process, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, minister of finance, lectured the house on the difference between supplementary and amendment budget. She also gave reasons why the federal government decided to send an amendment instead of a supplementary budget.

Confident as ever, Okonjo-Iweala, who appeared before the members of House of Representatives Joint Committee on Appropriation  and Finance made them look like dullards as she explained that a supplementary budget can only be sent to the House when the government has excess revenue. She said that the federal government had not hidden the fact that the revenue accruing to the country had been declining. She said that because the government has been losing revenue, it cannot send a supplementary budget on a non-existent revenue to the House for consideration. “You cannot talk of supplementary budget when your revenue is going down. That is why we are asking for an amendment to restore the money that was removed”, She said.

Okonjo-Iweala’s explanation came on the heels of the refusal by the House to consider the  budget amendment which the executive arm of government sent to it. The House had maintained that it had passed the 2013 budget which the executive signed into law and that the budget should be implemented. Before passing the budget, the National Assembly had tinkered with it by cutting off N32 billion from the N4.9trillion sent to it. According to Okonjo-Iweala, the revenue loss to the country is as a result of crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism and production shut-in which is costing the country 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily. “I have to clarify that it is not as if the entire 400,000 barrels is stolen, no. What happens is that whenever the pipelines are attacked and oil is taken, there is a total shut down. All the quantity of oil produced for that day will be lost because it means a drop in revenue,” the minister said. She added that this was why President Goodluck Jonathan sought to amend the 2013 Appropriation Act as against sending a supplementary budget. Apart from oil theft, revenue accruing to the country through Customs is also on the decline, the minister said.

Prior to this, the members of the House had been stewing over a statement credited to Okonjo-Iweala to the effect that she said that the economy would collapse if the house did not amend the budget.  In one of the plenary sessions, angry members took turns to castigate the minister, saying that she was trying to turn the nation against them. They also accused her of flip flopping because she had variously said that the economy was robust and growing while at the same time saying the economy would collapse by September.

But Okonjo-Iweala denied saying that the economy would collapse but that she said the government would be unable to pay salaries by September if the budget was not amended, adding that it was a statement of fact. She used the opportunity to comment on the performance of the budget so far, saying that 67 percent of capital project implementation had been achieved and that government had so far released N600 billion to ministries, departments and agencies  with N587.7 cash backed. On the contentious constituency projects, she also said that there was no dispute with the lawmakers over them as widely speculated, adding: “I want to say that constituency projects have not been an issue” and that there was no directive stopping the implementation of constituency projects. According to her, the ministry of Finance has released N50 billion, representing 50 percent of budgetary allocation to constituency projects. She said that it was not true that the ministries, department and agencies were implementing only constituency projects belonging to senators, describing such claim as strange and totally false. Constituency projects, according to her, are being supervised by the minister of special duties in line with the president’s directives.

It is not clear if the joint committee chaired by John Enoh and Abdulmumuni Jibrin bought into Okonjo-Iweala’s  explanation, even though their anger appeared to have lost steam. They, however, did give any indication that the House will amend the budget as the executive is requesting members to do. Nigerians are waiting for the next plenary when the committee will present its report to the full House of the Representatives.