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President Goodluck Jonathan finally succumbs to pressures from lawmakers, signs the 2013 federal budget
| By Maureen Chigbo | Mar. 11, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT
THE cloud hovering over the 2013 budget lifted on Tuesday when President Goodluck Jonathan signed it without any more ado. The budget has been in limbo since it was passed December 2012, by the National Assembly, shortening the joy Nigerians had because they thought that both the Executive and Legislature had got their acts together by breaking the jinx over budget delays. But it took more than two months for the president to sign the N4.987 trillion 2013 Appropriation Bill into law. What the president sent to the National Assembly was about N4.6 trillion budget.
The signing of the bill came without fanfare amidst unresolved issues concerning constituency projects, no budgetary allocation to Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC and the alleged increase of the budget by the National Assembly as against the original figure submitted by Jonathan. The signing was done after Jonathan, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, finance minister and other top government officials met the leadership of the National Assembly comprising David Mark, Senate president and Aminu Tambuwal, Speaker, House of Representatives.
Realnews learnt that the meeting did not end on a friendly note as Mark and Tambuwal stormed out of the presidential villa and a reluctant Jonathan was advised to sign the budget to pre-empt any unforeseen action the National Assembly could take that could be detrimental to the image of the federal government. Constitutionally, the National Assembly could override the president if he fails to accent to the bill after 30 days had elapsed.
Meanwhile, Nigerians and some international financial institutions in the country are not excited by the development. Most people who talked to Realnews could not comment on the budget because the details were not yet out. An official of a multi-lateral organisation, which has office in Nigeria, said he will have to study the details before he could comment, hinting, however, that emphasis of the budget should be on capital rather than on recurrent expenditure for it to be meaniful.
A former staff of the defunct Intercontinental Bank, who wishes anonymity, is of the view that Jonathan allowed himself to be browbeaten into knowingly signing a corruption laden (referring to the constituency allocations) bill into law. According to him, the constituency projects are euphemism for corruption and the president should not have resisted so long only to sign what the National Assembly presented to him. “If the president had resisted signing the bill for so long, why does he do so now? The constituency projects did not emanate from the ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs of the government, but from the National Assembly. The National Assembly should not be doing appropriation for capital projects. It is an aberration in law. For many Nigerians, it is a disappointment that Jonathan signed it as proposed by the National Assembly.” he said. He, however, added that it is good that the country now has a budget to work with.
Emmanuel Isokpan, a financial consultant with Transnational Consulting, said the details of the budget was shrouded in secrecy. “Until we see it, we can’t make any comment. For sure, they can’t implement the budget because of their quarrel over it,” he said.
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