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Nigeria: Consequences of Budget Delay
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Vanguard (Lagos)
EDITORIAL
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 28 March 2008
Lagos
NIGERIA is once again being held to ransom by the failure of the National Assembly and the President to agree on the budget.
The President first sent in the proposed 2008 appropriation bill last October. Observers expected the National Assembly to finish work on the budget by December 31, to enable the three tiers of government to start the year at full steam. For a nation with the ambition to be among the top 10 economies by 2020, every minute of the12 years between now and then is precious.
Unfortunately, since 1999, the National Assembly has failed to complete its budget assignments on time until late February. The authorised budget sent to the President late February for his signature was in excess of what the executive branch had presented resulting in the presidential veto of the bill.
The amendments to the original bill are again unacceptable to the President who returned the bill to the National Assembly as the first quarter draws to a close.
It is regrettable that a President whose political party controls an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly finds it difficult to get his party members to support his budgetary proposals. Indeed, the entire episode which has repeated itself since 1999 confirms the absence of ideology and principles in our national politics. Where politics is governed by ideology and principles elected officials generally are of one mind and disagreements seldom occur over budgets.
What is worrisome are the following. With the budget not passed by the end of the first quarter, the nation's progress is unnecessarily retarded. President Umaru Yar'Adua last year ordered ministries and parastatals to return funds unspent by December 31, 2007 to the treasury. That order would have been commendable if the budget was passed before January 1.
It certainly does not make sense the ask for funds to be returned to the treasury and for social services to be denied the people when the executive and legislative branches have denied them the use of the funds for 25% of the time.
Budget delays make even less sense from the standpoint of national productivity. Factors of production include money, manpower and natural resources. Time is as critical as any of them.
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Delay in passing budget every year indicates that both the executive and the legislative branches of the Federal Government have not given time the regard to which it is entitled in national planning. Year 2020 is moments away and our ambition, daunting as it is even under the best of circumstances, would turn out to be a mission impossible if we fail to use each minute.
The National Assembly, which constitutionally has the power of the purse, should either over-ride the presidential veto or accept the President's proposed budget and get the nation moving as it should.
So much time has been wasted. Suggestions that the President would approach the Supreme Court for intervention can only cause further delays and open unnecessary chasm between the National Assembly in the execution of an annual routine both parties under estimate its importance.
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