Monrovia — On Tuesday,the Plenary of the House of Representatives constituted itself into a committee of a whole and passed the draft recast budget for fiscal year 2023 in the tune of US$759.4 million just as President George Weah had requested them to do.
The House's decision came just days after it rejected President Weah's request to pass the amended budget owing to the President's failure to accompany the draft financial instrument with copies for each member of the House to review before deciding.
That motion requesting the President to provide copies of the draft restated budget as proffered by Rep. Clarence Massaquoi (District #3, Lofa County) and accepted by Plenary on July 9, 2023, stated that the lawmakers did not officially recognize the President's communication and will only do so, if the Executive adheres to their request.
Following the reading of the President's communication, the plenary voted in favor of a motion to table his request until each of the lawmakers are served with copies of the proposed restated budget.
The proponent of the motion, Rep Massaquoi, noted that it would be impossible to make any informed decision if each lawmaker is not given a copy of the draft restated budget.
Massaquoi noted that the lawmakers' research will cover the originally approved FY2023 budget. He noted that reading should be deemed as null and void until copies of the bill are distributed.
"... I move if I could be seconded, that the communication from the executive ... constitutes the president's official communication. However, given that copies of this bill have not been distributed to every member of this House which is a requirement of our rules, given also that the decision will require a research of the current budget, given that it will take some time for the copies to be distributed, it is my motion that this communication is not considered officially read on the floor until copies are distributed. When the copies are distributed, members will now entertain that the document be read on the floor."
Some lawmakers including Rep. Larry P. Younquoi (District #8, Nimba County) complained that since the original budget became a law, the Executive did not issue copies to the Legislature. They said the budget was obscured.
The House's rules say before a bill can be acted upon, it should be read three times in plenary.
The U-turn
However, without confirming whether it received copies of the draft budget as requested from the President, or turning it (draft budget) over to its Committee on Ways, Means and Finance for scrutiny and recommendation (s), the plenary invoked a clause within its rules that authorizes it to override the provision that calls for all bills to be read three times before acting on it and passed the budget.
Reason for the recast
In March this year, the national budget for fiscal year 2023 was passed by the Legislature in the tone of US$ 782.9 million and approved by the President. It then was printed into a handbill. However, with two quarters into the fiscal year, President Weah returned to the Legislature, informing the august body to make an adjustment because it would be impossible to attain all of the projections made prior to the approval of the FY2023 national budget due to some challenges.
The president said these challenges led to a US$23.5 million or 3.5 percent shortfall.
The president blamed the underperformance of the budget in both tax and non-tax categories to the reduction in the volume of trade, expiration of surcharge on petroleum, reduction of tariff on excise on petroleum and a six-month-running slump in global market prices of export commodities in the mining sector has engendered revenue underperformance in both tax and non-tax categories since the beginning of the current fiscal year.
This underperformance, the President noted, has posed a challenge for executing the budget in the first two-quarters of FY2023 and has also prompted early reprioritization and program deferrals in some instances.
"It is against the foregoing that realization of the aggregate amount of US$23.5 million or 3.5 percent of the total projected Domestic revenue of US$672 million has been deemed a risk and untenable," he stated.
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"To ensure that year-end spending is in line with available resources, adjustments in spending entities' program allocation balances have been made such that the risk is absorbed by all and sundry. However, critical priority allocations for the ensuing elections and the national electricity grid have been ring-fenced."
According to the President, the total adjusted recurrent expenditure is estimated at US$612,558,028 or 80.7 percent of the total proposed expenditure.
The revised expenditure estimate for public sector investment is US$146,857,790 or 19.3 percent of the total proposed expenditure.
'No free ride'
The bill has been sent to the Liberian Senate for concurrence. However, some staffers of the Senate, speaking to FPA on condition of anonymity said the the budget will not be given a "free ride" in the Senate as it happened in the House.
"No doubt the budget will be scrutinized. There will be no free ride. I trust the Liberian Senate to look through it before passage. They can't just pass it in such manner," a staffer said.
