Fresh N10bn for national assembly — lawmakers inflate 2017 budget

The national assembly has finally passed the 2017 budget, nearly six months after it was presented by President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2016.

In the process of scrutinising the budget from presentation to passage, the national assembly committees added as much as N143 billion to the initial N7.28 trillion presented by the president.

TheCable is comparing what was presented and what was passed and spotting the inflation made to Buhari’s original plan, as prepared by the ministry of budget and national planning.

From the top, the national assembly inflated its own budget by N10 billion, from the original N115 billion presented by the president to N125 billion, which was eventually passed.

Statutory transfers for the year was moved from the original N419 billion to N434 billion, based on the dictates of the national assembly.

Following the launch of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) by the president, in March, the national assembly also added N2.5 billion for “implementation of the ERGP and establishment of delivery unit at the presidency”.

For the Code of Conduct Bureau, the national assembly also added an extra billion, bringing the new allocation for  recurrent expenditure to N3.73 billion for the year ending on December 31, 2017.

For the ministry of power, works  and housing, the initial budget was put at N564 billion.

Babatunde Fashola, the minister in charge of the ministry, in his budget defence told the senate committee on housing and urban development that the proposal submitted to the senate was not from his ministry.

“It is not our project. It came in from, I think, the budget (office). It is a ministry of finance initiative; saying that they want to do what they called ‘family homes’. It is not from us,” Fashola had said.

“That is why I have come. I am explaining to you now, sir, on how it comes into our budget. That is not what we submitted. We didn’t submit that proposal.”

After the clarifications and national assembly review, the total budget for the ministry was raise by over N20 billion, to N586.5 billion.

Another inflation was  seen in the office of the secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), where about N10 billion was added to the presented budget, before passage.

The total amount billed  for the office of the SGF was initially N72.97 billion, but has been jerked up to N84.71 billion as at when it was passed by the legislature.

With these inflation, the national assembly went on to cut the amount earmarked for treasury single account (TSA) operations from N5 billion to N4 billion.