The Senate, on Thursday, took a swipe on President Muhammadu Buhari’s proposed 2016-2018 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), describing the documents as empty, just as it asked the Executive to stop what it termed, playing game with the documents.
The Senate which also described the borrowing plan as empty, stressed that the National Assembly cannot work with the current empty documents, adding that once the Federal government comes up with the needed information, it would commence discussions.
The attack came barely two days after the upper chamber rejected President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2016-2018 External Borrowing Rolling Plan request.
The position of the Senate was taken today, when Senate leader, Sen. Ali Ndume, APC, Borno South drew the attention of the Senate to a Newspaper publication of Wednesday, 2nd of October, 2016, where the Senators took a swipe at the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma for blaming the National Assembly over the delay in the presentation of 2017 budget.
Relying on Order 42 and 52 of the Senate Standing Rules, Ndume who urged the Senators to call the Minister to order, said that the delay in the presentation of the 2017 budget was not caused by the National Assembly, but the executive arm which has not provided the necessary framework, must be blamed.
Ndume who noted that the borrowing plan and the MTEF/FSP were empty and shallow, said that when the Senate invited Udoma to brief the leadership of the Senate on grey areas of the MTEF/FSP on Tuesday, he refused to show up and he did not explain the reason for his non-appearance.
Ndume said: “The Sun Newspaper of yesterday (Wednesday) on Page 6 has a report with a heading which says ‘Budget 2017: Blame National Assembly for Failure to Meet October Target.’ And in that, it said the Minister of Budget and National Planning stated that the suspension of the debate on MTEF and FSP, which lays the foundation for the budget, has stalled the Ministry’s plan to have laid the 2017 budget before the National Assembly.
“We received the MTEF on 30th September instead of submitting it according to law by 1st of September – not later than. That is not even the problem. I have a copy, I went through and the copies have been circulated. I talked to some experts. Even in this chamber, we have people we can call experts.
“If you look at this document that they call MTEF, it is empty. It is empty and it does not contain anything. If you have nothing, how do you consider nothing? Going through and knowing that it is empty, on October 19, I wrote to the Minister of Budget and National Planning.
“In the third paragraph, I stated, ‘To enable the Senate objectively review the MTEF from a holistic fiscal perspective, we deem it necessary to invite you to a meeting to brief the leadership of the Senate on Tuesday, 1st November.’
“But the minister failed to turn up. Before then, I said, ‘You are requested to please send the following documents ahead of the meeting because that is what will make us to have something to consider. I said, (a) the Medium-Term Development Plan (even a draft copy) upon which the 2017-2019 MTEF is founded; you know that is important.
“A report on the structure/composition of the debt, funding sources, how the borrowed funds are to be spent as well as repayment plan and schedule. As I said, up till now, there is no communication as to that.
“Finally, I have here also a copy of the request for approval of the Federal Government’s 2016-2018 external borrowing plan which was thrown out at last Tuesday. We cannot afford to start the 2017 budget process with his blame game.
“This Senate is Nigerian Senate. This Senate especially, we have the opposition that is cooperating with us and we have the majority. It is not like we are working against the government, but we know what we are doing and we should do it right.
“When they bring nothing and we ask for something so that we will do it properly, they speak to the newspaper to start blaming the National Assembly. I think it is important we discuss this and advice ourselves properly.
In a letter dated 19th of October, 2016 and signed on behalf of the Senate by Ndume, Udoma was invited and asked to brief the Senate leadership on some key issues contained in the MTEF/FSP documents, but he shunned the meeting.
Ndume’s letter inviting Udoma read, “To enable the Senate objectively review the MTEF from a holistic fiscal perspective, we deem it necessary to invite you to a meeting to brief the leadership of the Senate on Tuesday, Ist November, 2016 at the National Assembly by 2pm.”
