- Fed Govt must ensure that its agencies submit budget estimates to National Assembly
As if to remind Nigerians of how far some agencies of the Federal Government are from grasping the basic tenet of law and constitutionalism, the Senate, last week, announced a list of violators of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 (amended in 2011). The agencies – 38 in number – were found to have failed to submit their 2017 budget proposal to the National Assembly in line with extant law, for consideration and approval. Moving a motion calling on the agencies to do so within two weeks, it also ordered their supervising ministers to stop forthwith, all capital and non-essential expenditures for the current budget year, pending full compliance.
That record number agencies would act so brazenly in defiance of the law is certainly revealing. More disturbing however is that the practices are being carried on under the direct watch of the executive branch.
Section 80 subsection (4) of the 1999 Constitution (As amended) is of course clear on the mode of authorisation for public funds: “No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other fund of the federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly”.
Section 21 (1) of the PRA is just explicit on how the agencies of government can go about the use the funds in their care: “The government corporations and agencies and government-owned companies listed in the schedule to this Act (in this Act referred to as ‘the corporations’) shall, not later than six months from the commencement of this Act and for every three financial years thereafter and not later than the end of the second quarter of every year, cause to be prepared and submitted to the minister their schedule estimates of revenue and expenditure for the next three financial years.”
Subsection 2 of the Act goes on to say: “Each of the bodies referred to in subsection (1) of this section shall submit to the minister not later than the end of August in each financial year: (a) an annual budget derived from the estimates submitted in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section; and (b) projected operating surplus which shall be prepared in line with acceptable accounting practices.”
While subsection 3 states quite expressly: “The minister shall cause the estimates submitted in pursuance of subsection (2) to be attached as part of the draft Appropriation Bill to be submitted to the National Assembly.”
The brazen anomalies, though unfortunate, have been with us since the advent of the fourth republic. Whereas successive Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) administrations ran the agencies, particularly the so-called cash cows like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) like fiefdoms engrafted to the presidency without any parliamentary oversight, and the apex bank like an island onto itself under a rather expansive definition of institutional independence, the result has been catastrophic for both the due process and the requirement for transparency.
In the specific instance, the respective agencies ought to have sent in their budgetary estimates in August 2016 – four clear months before the presentation of the 2017 budget by President Muhammadu Buhari in December last year. That is what the law requires.
Given that it is now some five months since, the question then arises – why was the issue not brought up at any point during the period that the budget estimate was with the National Assembly? By passing the 2017 budget while leaving out this critical requirement, is the National Assembly then – as always – not as complicit in foisting the anomalies over which it now complains?
We hope that the latest development signals a new beginning, particularly with acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, not only issuing an executive order outlining the timeline and procedure for government offices to submit their yearly budgets but directing the agencies to comply. The law envisaged no less; if anything, we expect that strict adherence to constitute the template, going forward.
