The recent passage of the 2009 Federal Budget will go down as the fastest in recent years, coming just three months after it was presented to both chambers of the National Assembly by President Umaru Musa Yar'adua.

The National Assembly had promised a speedy passage of the bill and resolved to return the nation to the enviable era of a January to December financial year. The delay is not entirely the fault of the National Assembly as Mr. President missed several dates before his final presentation. We hope that these misses were to enable his government capture all the necessary things needed to cushion the effect of a global recession and keep the Nigerian economy growing.

On its part, the National Assembly insisted on following the full elements of the law in ensuring the passage of the bill. This is as it should be. While the Senate did a hurried job by passing within two weeks, it was evident that it left several logical questions unanswered in that process. It is commendable that the House of Representatives insisted on looking into the details of the proposal and asking the right questions.

This procedure revealed several loopholes in the budgetting and expenditure profile of several government agencies and departments. It also led to the exposure of several problems which hurts, not just the budget but questions the virtues of integrity and due process which ought to differentiate an accountable system from a sloppy or a shoddy one.

The uproar, which greeted the discovery by the lower chamber, of unspent funds, has now forced government to introduce safety measures which, we hope would guide subsequent budgetary procedures. One of this is for all government contracts to be awarded, latest, by the end of September. This, if followed to the letter, would allow for proper monitoring and for all unspent funds to be returned into government coffers, thereby enhancing transparency. On its part, the House has promised to follow, blow by blow, all expenditure profiles of government this year. If this promise is carried through with clean intentions, not only would all drain-pipes be blocked, government expenditure will enter into a new era of openness.

The details of this year's budget also brought some good expectations. It would appear that the benchmarks are, at best, altruistic in an era of unstable fuel price regime and global recession. Thus, most of the allocations are considered reasonable. The phenomenon of padding, which usually results in excess funds being mismanaged, or stolen liquidity by clever civil servants and their political masters, would appear to have been blocked.

As pundits would say, with proper implementation, Nigeria may have made good provisions for its citizenry in 2009. All this has come, thanks to the synergy between the executive and the legislature without compromising the enviable principle of separation of powers. We commend and recommend this synergy to be carried into future executive-legislative dealings.

There are also basic apprehensions in the entire process. First, we need to ask both houses of parliament to ensure that public good overides their party or parochial interests in dealing with budgetary issues. In other words, there should be no hurry in doing the bidding of the executive or vice versa until all matters have been weighed in the public interest. It was right that the House insisted on following due process. We implore the Senate to adopt this attitude in future dealings with appropriation issues.

We also notice, with dismay, the reluctance of some government agencies and parastatals to defend their budgets when called upon to do so. There should be no executive shield to waste the time of the legislature when it comes to budgetting. Since no agency works on zero allocation, it behoves all heads of agencies to ensure that they are up and ready to defend their proposal at any time. We hope that the relevant arms of the executive would caution their agencies to adhere strictly to summons from the people's representatives whenever they are called upon and apply sanctions where there is undue delay.

We are also dismayed at the level of non-transparency in the government revenue profile following the startling revelation that not all accruable revenue is channelled through the budgeting process. This is a horrendous lacuna that should not be encouraged. The principle of transparency dictates that all revenues accruing to government should be properly projected, properly monitored and properly accounted for and that no kobo should be spent where this is not done. We hope that the executive would ensure strict compliance with this global principle, especially at this period of our national life when the fluctuating price of crude oil makes it imperative that we do not engage in profligate spending.

Finally, we are happy to see that with external debts now lower than they used to be, a substantial chunk of this year's budget has been dedicated to domestic debt servicing. This is expected to buoy local spending, the survival of the people and the few industries left. In essence, this year's budget can be described as the budget for the Nigerian economy. We hope its implementation leaves nothing less desirable.