Sufuyan Ojeifo
4 February 2008
Abuja — The Senate said yesterday that it had succeeded in reducing the over N400 billion deficit in this year's budget and expressed optimism that the budget would achieve its objectives if fully implemented.
Spokesperson of the Senate and Chairman of the Committee on Media and Information, Senator Ayogu Eze told THISDAY that "the Senate has been able to reduce the deficit in the budget, which will be passed this week, to the barest minimum."
Eze, who is a member of the Appropriation Committee, would not say by how much the deficit had been reduced.
He stated that the Committee was still working very hard as at yesterday to ensure the submission and presentation of its report to the Senate, this week. According to him, "We are working very hard to conclude on the budget this week. It is very possible for us to turn in our report this Tuesday.
We have received every relevant document, particularly the revenue profile, from the Executive.
"The budget will be passed this week so that we can go along with the House of Representatives which has indicated its readiness to pass the budget on Tuesday."
Speaking on the resolve by the Senate to reduce the level of deficit in the budget, Eze said that the Upper House had really been able to achieve the feat, explaining that "This is why a lot of Ministries are not getting fresh allocations."He said that the money that had been recalled and the amount that would accrue from the increase in the crude oil price benchmark from $53.86 to $59 per barrel would help to eliminate the deficit in the long run.
According to him, "As I said before now, the deficit in the budget is over N400 billion. We have reduced it to the barest minimum. In fact, we have almost eliminated deficit from the budget."
Eze had last month said that the National Assembly wanted to eliminate the over N400 billion deficit from the budget and had disclosed that the Federal Legislature, through the Senate Appropriation Committee, had been able to get the Executive arm of government to recall a whopping N217 billion from some illegal accounts.According to Eze, "A total sum of N217 billion that was not originally captured in the 2008 budget has been brought. If you add N7 billion from the Senate and some other revenues from Sugar Levy Accounts which are illegal, then we are looking forward to a situation where we can raise some N300 billion or more by recalling monies from these accounts."Already, in the 2008 budget, we have a deficit of about N400 billion.
This money being recalled will be captured in the budget and will enable us to fund the deficit and we will have a balance budget at the end of the day."He said that the recalled funds were not originally captured in the 2008 budget estimates submitted to the National Assembly by the Executive arm, thus confirming the disclosure by the Upper House late last year that it had discovered a whopping sum of between N200 and N300 billion lodged by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in some secret and illegal interest-yielding accounts since 2005.The Upper House had in plenary directed the Minister of Finance, Dr. Samsudeen Usman through the Appropriation Committee to recall the money illegally lodged so that it could be captured in the 2008 budget.On its part, the Senate had returned its unspent N7 billion capital votes in the 2007 budget to the treasury for the purpose of re-appropriation in the 2008 budget.
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