The executive arm of government in Nigeria and the National Assembly are fighting over alterations in the 2017 budget again

|  By Anayo Ezugwu  |  Jul 10, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT  |

The executive arm of government and the National Assembly have renewed their fight for supremacy again over the 2017 budget. The latest fight was sparked off by Babatunde Fashola, minister of minister of works, housing and power, who denounced the Senate and the House of Representatives for altering what the ministry’s budgeted. But the legislators replied that Fashola was being economical with the truth about the budget.

Specifically, on Thursday, June 22, Fashola accused the National Assembly of inserting some projects outside the purview of his ministry in the 2017 Appropriation Act, describing their knowledge of the budget as “stark and worrisome.” According to him, it was unfair to the executive arm to include such projects after public hearings and defense of the fiscal estimates by the ministries.

“What I have in my budget now is primary healthcare centres, boreholes. That was the meeting we had with the Acting President and that was the reason why the budget was not signed on time. We were ask to complete those abandoned projects; the budget of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was reduced by the National Assembly from N31 billion to N10 billion,” the minister said.

Fashola said apart from the 200 uncompleted roads he inherited from the previous administration, the lawmakers’ added 100 roads. “We are owing the contractors about N15 billion and they have written to us that they are going to shut down. Also, the budget of the 2nd Niger bridge was reduced from N15 billion to N10 billion and about N3 billion or so was removed from the Okene-Lokoja-Abuja road budget. Everybody is complaining about power supply but they also cut the budget for Manbila power project and the Bodo bridge that connects the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Station was also cut and all these were also discussed. If after we have defended the budget and we had gone and the legislature unilaterally changed the budget, what is the purpose of deliberation?’’

Prior to Fashola’s umbrage, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo had earlier in June said the National Assembly does not have any power to alter the budget the way it did with insertion of projects not proposed by the executive into it.

But the National Assembly has repudiated the position of the executive, saying that the 1999 Constitution is very clear about its powers relating to the budget. The Senate on Saturday, June 24, warned Fashola to desist from spreading falsehood on the 2017 Budget with regards to projects under his ministry. It said in passing the Appropriation Bill, the legislators worked and applied equity in the provision for new and outstanding projects across the country.

Senator Sabi Abdullahi, spokesperson of the Senate, said Fashola did not give details of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which was on private finance initiative from the beginning.  He said the Bureau of Public Procurement and the Federal Executive Council in 2013, approved the reconstruction, rehabilitation and expansion of the expressway on public-private-partnership basis, “using private finance initiative”. “The Federal Government provided about 30 percent of the funding while the balance shall be provided by the private sector. The project was on course for completion by end of 2017 when the private finance initiative was being implemented, with over 30 percent completion rate attained as at early 2015.

“But, in a blatant disregard for existing agreements, constituted authorities and extant laws, Fashola on assumption of office, got the government through the ministry to start voting money for the implementation of the project. Even, as at last year, the 2016 Appropriation Act voted N40 billion for the project on the insistence of the ministry and only N26 billion was released. If we had known, the rest N14 billion could have been allocated to other critical roads across the country,” he said.

Similarly, the House of Representatives accused Fashola of peddling inaccuracies, misleading and calculated mischief” about the 2017 budget. Abdulrazak Namdas, chairman of Committee on Media and Publicity, said the minister’s statement tended to blackmail the National Assembly and set it on a collision with the executive.

He said the minister was fixated on matters of power rather than issues that would benefit Nigerians. According to Namdas, there was an obvious attempt to  paint the National Assembly as an irresponsible institution, one not concerned with the welfare of the people. He said because part of funds allocated to Second Niger Bridge in 2016 was returned at the end of the year, the National assembly reduced allocation to the project in the 2017 Budget by N5 billion, explaining that the deduction was applied to fund other projects in the South-East, leaving only N7 billion for the Second Niger Bridge.

“The truth is that in the 2016 Budget, N12 billion was appropriated for the Second Niger Bridge but not a kobo was spent by the ministry. Not a kobo was spent and the money was returned. The ministry could not provide the committees of the National Assembly with evidence of an agreement on the Public-Private-Partnership or a contract for the Second Niger Bridge,” he said.

In support of the National Assembly, Vince Ayogu, lawyer, said in as much as the National Assembly has the oversight function to scrutinise the budget, it also has powers to review the budget upwardly or downwardly. “Under the constitution, there is nothing expressly empowering the National Assembly to tamper with the budget, which is an estimate submitted to them by the executive. But under the general powers to make laws for the federation, you know when the budget is passed it comes a law.

“So if the president submits a budget to the National Assembly, it is within their powers to scrutinise the budget, make amendments, add whatever they feel they should add, remove whatever they feel they should remove and come up with something they consider reasonable to them. It is not out of place for them to tamper with an estimate submitted to them by the executive. For instance, if you follow politics in the US, you discover that the health bill submitted to the Senate and the Congress were gazetted and redrafted. And they are going ahead to vote on the bill based on the redrafted copy. There is nothing stopping the National Assembly from correcting, adding or removing from an estimate submitted to them by the executive.”

However, Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, has faulted the National Assembly’s claims that it has powers to tinker with the budget. Falana on Tuesday, June 27, said he had once challenged the interference of the National Assembly with appropriation act and is certain that a court never ruled that the legislature could upwardly review the budget.

“Sometime in 2014, I had cause to challenge the extent of the oversight powers of the National Assembly to rewrite the appropriation bill or increase the budget estimates presented to it by the president. (See Suit No FHC/ABJ/CS/295/2014: Femi Falana v the president and three Ors). In dismissing the case the respected learned trial judge, the Honourable Justice G O Kolawole questioned my locus standi to institute the action, saying the reliefs sought in the case qualified me to be described as a meddlesome interloper,” Falana said.

With different interpretations of the Constitution coming from lawyers, the attorney General of the Federation, AGF, needs to approach the Supreme Court to settle once and for all whose duty it is to make budgetary appropriation in the country. Until that happens, Nigerians may continue to witness the unsavoury yearly bickering between the executive and the legislative arms of government.