allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Senate May Slash NPC's Budget Over Daggash' Remarks (Page 1 of 1)

Angered by the report credited to the Minister/Deputy Chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC), Senator Sanusi Daggash that the National Assembly slashed to the Commission's allocation in this year's budget by N2.5 billion, the Senate yesterday threatened to further slash the N4 billion allocation.

Daggash had said that despite the slash, potential contractors should not shy away from applying for contracts when the occasion called for it as they would be fairly treated. But Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Information, Senator Ayogu Eze said that the National Assembly was not happy about the allegation of budget cut leveled against it by Daggash.

He told Senate Correspondents that the Senate had now found out that the Commission did not have the capacity to ingest the huge allocation, stressing that the Commission did not actually need more than N50 million to run its services. According to him, "The reason for my coming here today (yesterday) is to react to something that I saw in the newspaper this morning about the National Assembly slashing the budget of the National Planning Ministry by N2.5 billion. "I think that the National Assembly, especially the Senate, is not very happy about this allegation considering that the budget of the National Planning was increased by about 6,000%.

"The budget in 2007 was N400 million and in 2008 it was N6.5 billion and we think that this is unreasonable and in the estimation of the Senate and, of course, the National Assembly, we don't see why they need more than N50 million in that Ministry. They don't need more than N50 million because it is a service ministry; I can see where they are talking about applying for contract; what contract do you do in National Planning?"

Eze continued: "National Planning is supposed to generate statistics and research oriented data for national growth and not for awarding contracts. "If you want contracts, you go to Ministry of Works or you go to Ministry of Power and Steel or Ministry of Energy. So it is a bit of surprise to us that this allegation has persisted because the Minister has made this allegation and we thought well we had taken it in a lighter mood but since he has persistently harped on it, it has now come to a point where he is impugning on the integrity of the National Assembly as if we just went out of our way to slash his budget.

"In 2007, National Planning had N400 million; in 2008, he proposed N6.5 billion; where did the quadruple jump come from? What has necessitated the jump from N400 million to N6.5 billion?"

According to Eze, "Even the N400 million, they did not have the capacity to utilize in 2007; so we are going to review the budget of the National Planning along with the status and capacity of the National Planning to ingest and operate that budget."We have heard about all the attempts to bring back certain aspects of the budget and we waiting, when the budget come we will give it the appropriate treatments because we are the true representatives of the people."We will wait for that budget and we will hope that the budget comes; when it comes, we have reached some basic understanding with the President and it goes with the basic understandings that we will treat the budget; but if it is going along in line with anybody trying to impede the development of this country according to the understanding of the members of the National Assembly, the National assembly will use Constitutional powers to treat that budget."Asked whether it was not an indictment on the National Assembly for appropriating money that the NPC could not utilize, Eze said, "What I said was one that conditioned by the fact that we are going to take a deeper look at what the Ministry assignments are."Since we began, we began to get the persistent complaints, we now called in the records of the Ministry to determine actually whether they have capacity to use the N4 billion we had even given to them and, in the process of that investigation, we have found out that we were wrong in the first instance because they don't have capacity'.

"So the reason why I said that was impugning on our integrity is that we don't just unilaterally flash budget, because there are certain programmes, certain activities that they have put in that Ministry and we have since reviewed those activities and found out that those activities have over-lapped with activities of other Ministries and they can best be taken care of by other Ministries." The Senate had, in the peak of the budget face-off between the National Assembly and the Presidency, pointed a finger of guilt at Daggash, saying he was the architect of the crisis between the two arms of governemnt.

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