Budget Padding: The road to constitutional dictatorship

One cliché that has lately drawn interest among Nigerian newsmakers and observers is the controversial phenomenon of “Budget Padding.” Given the way Nigerians are wont to glamourise crimes, or take for granted issues thrown at them by the political class, it is not surprising that very few Nigerians have been able to interrogate the phrase to give a definitive meaning to it.

Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and the just sacked Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Rep. Abdulmumin Jibrin, recently refocused attention on the issue.

Jibrin had drawn the first blood a week ago after he was removed as chairman of the appropriation committee when he accused Speaker Yakubu Dogara and three other principal officers of padding the 2016 budget. According to him, his opposition to the alleged padding and other supposed malfeasances of the Speaker and his allies was the reason for his forced resignation as chairman of the appropriation committee.

His assertion, however, quickly drew the attention of critics who queried why he had to wait till he was removed from office before spilling the beans.

Taking a cue from the assertions of Rep. Jibrin, President Obasanjo upon a visit with President Muhammadu Buhari again took a direct hit at the National Assembly when he said that the Jibrin incident had again confirmed his past assertions that there were rogues and armed robbers in the National Assembly.

Obasanjo’s assertions undoubtedly drew from his experience of dealing with the National Assembly during his period in the Presidential Villa. In one case, he had an incumbent President of the Senate investigated and charged to court after he and some other members of the committees on education of the two chambers were indicted for soliciting for bribes to pass the budget of the Federal Ministry of Education.

However, what has shaken many friends and foes of the former president is the claim that the most brazen act of corruption in recent Nigeria history involving the legislature did not emanate from the National Assembly, but from the executive branch of government.

It was an irony of sorts for someone like Senator Adolphus Wabara who was himself allegedly offered double the amount to support the amendment. Wabara claimed he was offered double the normal N50 million even after he was indicted by the executive branch of government in the N54 million bribe for budget scam in the Federal Ministry of Education.The Third Term fiasco during which members of the House of Representatives supportive of the constitution amendment for a third term for the president and governors were offered N50 million apiece till date continues to be cited as the most repugnant act of corruption ever in the Fourth Republic of Nigeria.

A number of other principled legislators also refused the bribe and were to shine like stars in that dark period of licentious legislative lampoonery supposedly crafted by the executive branch. For their principled stances, they were denied return tickets and many others like Temi Harriman, the only House member from the ruling party from the South-South who fought third term, simply walked away from the ruling party.

Senator Joy Emodi for her opposition was made to confront the political treachery that has been symptomatic of politics in Anambra State in her bid for a return ticket on the platform of the PDP.

The Third Term project and the seeming acquiesce of the Obasanjo presidency to the fiasco remains in the view of many, including this correspondent, the major failure of the Obasanjo administration.

Otherwise, President Obasanjo has remained almost head and shoulder above his successors.

Whether President Obasanjo or Jibrin or whoever, no one has been able to give a classic definition of the phrase, budget padding.

The seeming determination of the executive branch to force the term into the consciousness of Nigerians remains deceptive.

Given the provisions of Sections 80, 81 and 82 of the Constitution, the National Assembly cannot be said to have padded a budget that it has a right to work on. Stopping the National Assembly from padding, adjusting or shrinking the budget would inevitably make the legislature a rubber stamp. It would mean taking away its most important duty of controlling the purse and turning the executive branch into a dictatorship.

National Assembly to get 2017-2019 MTEF in October- Punch

The Medium Term Expenditure Framework for 2017-2019, which is the document that will guide the preparation of the budget for that period, will be ready and submitted to the National Assembly by October, the Federal Government has said.

The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, disclosed this on Monday at a stakeholders’ consultative forum with civil society groups on the 2017-2019 MTEF.

Udoma explained that due to the volatile nature of crude oil in the international market, the Federal Government would be using a conservative figure as the benchmark oil price.

The benchmark figures are $42.5, $45 and $50 per barrel for the 2017, 2018 and 2019 fiscal periods, respectively.

The exchange rate upon which the budget is to be anchored, according to him, will be pegged at N290 to the dollar for the period.

He said, “Demand and supply factors are expected to keep crude oil prices low in the medium term compared to the period prior to mid-2014. We are considering a conservative oil price benchmark of $42.5 per barrel for 2017, $45 per barrel in 2018 and $50 per barrel in 2019.

“We estimate oil production to be 2.2 million barrel per day for 2017, 2.3 million barrel per day in 2018 and 2.4 million barrel per day for 2019. We have pegged the exchange rate for 2017, 2018 and 2019 at N290 to a dollar.”

The minister also said that from the 2017 fiscal year, the government would use recoveries made from misappropriated funds to finance the budget.

He said a significant increase in non-oil revenue receipts was being expected owing to the fact that the economy would experience gradual recovery.

Udoma stated that the Federal Government would propose a total sum of N7.41tn as distributable revenues in the 2017 fiscal year, while N7.85tn and N10.16tn were the revenue projections for 2018 and 2019, respectively.

He said, “A significant increase in non-oil revenue receipts is projected due to a gradually recovering domestic economy and government’s expected improvement in Federal Inland Revenue Service tax collection efforts. Company Income Tax is projected to increase from N1.79tn in 2016 to over N1.86tn in 2017 and beyond.

“Value Added Tax collections are to increase by about 42.4 per cent in 2017. Operating surpluses projection has been moderated downwards for 2017 and thereafter a modest growth. Customs collections are projected to moderate downwards for 2017 and thereafter a modest growth.”

On progress so far made in the 2016 budget, Udoma said out of the N6.07tn budgeted as total expenditure, the Federal Government had so far released the sum of N2.1tn.

He added that out of the projected revenue of N1.043tn from statutory revenue for the first half of the year, only N646.34bn was realised, while N52.570bn was realised from VAT from a projection of N99.12bn for the same period.

Out of the N2.1tn so far spent, the minister said debt servicing gulped N598.6bn; statutory transfer, N175.68bn; pension and gratuity, N79.18bn; and personnel cost, N891.31bn, among others.

He added that the sum of N253bn was released for capital projects.

Some of the representatives of the civil society groups, who spoke at the event, called on the Federal Government to learn from the mistakes made with the 2016 fiscal document.

For instance, the Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice, Mr. Eze Onyekpere said, “We have all seen that the revenue projections for 2016 were over optimistic. This is why we are finding it difficult to get money to fund the budget, especially the capital expenditure.

“From 2017 onwards, we should be more empirical in our revenue forecast. Let it be more realistic so that there won’t be a deviation of more than minus or plus five per cent. This is because if we have more money, we can do supplementary budgets rather than have an overly optimistic revenue projections and at the end of the day, we are not able to fund our budget.”

The Governance Programme Manager, Actionaid Nigeria, Mr. Obo Effanga, reminded the government of the limited time it had to fulfil its electoral promises.

He said, “This administration has a four-year period and one year has gone already, and even the government has admitted that the last year will be given to politics; so, effectively, they have just two years left.

“And we are preparing the budget for one of the two years remaining; so, if we don’t make sure that this works very well, it means that we can only look up to 2018.”