The Senate Tuesday was divided along party lines when senators from the All Progressives Party (APC) called for a complete review of the 2014 Appropriation Act, saying it is anti-people, while senators on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) pushed for its prompt passage after a few alterations.
The debate on the budget, which was marred by a series of interruptions through the recurring “point of order” raised by senators to checkmate different speakers, tilted along party lines even as the bill duly secured the support of PDP senators.
However, there were also senators from both parties who gave an objective assessment of the budget without prejudice to party affiliations.
Leading the debate on the Appropriation Bill, Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba recalled that the total budget of N4.6 trillion was laid before the chamber on December 19, 2013 by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
While noting that the budget was predicated on $77.5 oil benchmark, with N2.4 trillion as recurrent expenditure and N1.1 trillion as capital expenditure, Ndoma-Egba gave a further breakdown of the budget to include N39.6 billion for statutory transfers, N712 billion for debt service and N268.37 billion for the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) fund.
A further breakdown, according to Ndoma-Egba, included N725.94 billion for education, N340.33 billion budget for defence, N301.42 billion for police, N128.65 billion for works and N262.74 billion for health, among others.
In his contribution, Minority Leader, Senator George Akume, observed that the budget was not accompanied by certain documents, which according to him, would have helped the senators make meaningful contributions to the proposal.
He listed such documents to include copies of underlying revenue and expenditure profiles for the next few years, a detailed analysis of budget performance in the preceding year, as well as fiscal targets in the year under consideration.
On his part, Senator Ahmed Lawan (APC, Yobe North) described the budget as the worst proposal for Nigerian masses in the country so far.
He stated that the budget had not shown any intention to address poverty and protect the vulnerable in the society.
He observed that the 2014 budget could not be discussed without reference to 2013 budget, which according to him, showed that the total 72 per cent of recurrent expenditure contained therein was fully implemented, whereas a paltry 28 per cent of capital expenditure was implemented in the out-gone year.
He argued that implementation of the 2013 budget showed that only about N400 million was spent out of over N1.60 billion.
He recalled how Okonjo-Iweala had berated the country in her capacity as World Bank Managing Director when it budgeted 74 per cent as recurrent expenditure as against 26 per cent as capital expenditure in 2011, submitting that whereas the recurrent expenditure dropped from 74 to 71 per cent in 2012 and 69 per cent in 2013, it has again risen to 74 per cent in 2014.
He said in this circumstance, the ideal thing for Okonjo-Iweala to do was to honourably resign having failed to achieve what the administration hired her to do.
He also criticised allocations to the Niger Delta region through Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and Niger Delta Ministry, which he put at N163.1 billion as well as the N340 billion budget on security, lamenting that only N2 billion was allocated for development initiatives in the troubled North-east zone.
Also echoing Lawan, Senator Alkali Jajere (APC, Yobe South) said the entire budgetary estimates did not reflect both the political and economic realities of the nation.
He therefore suggested that the budget should be returned to the executive to re-work in a way that it would reflect the true state of Nigeria's political and economic configuration.
In the same vein, Senator Sardiq Yar'Adua (APC, Katsina Central), who described the budget proposal presented by Okonjo-Iweala as “Okonjonomics”, said the minister had failed to bring her experience as a former World Bank chief to bear and therefore should resign.
But Senator Babajide Omoworare (APC, Osun East), who criticised various allocations in the budget, said the Senate was duty bound to tinker with the proposal and ensure that they are properly allocated, as the case should be.
Doing otherwise, he said, would amount to surrendering the sovereignty of the legislature, as stipulated in Section 80/81 of the constitution, to the executive.
He also said a situation where only N328 million was allocated to Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, while N705 million was allocated to Aso Rock clinics, was an aberration which he said must be redressed.
However, Senator Isa Galaudu (PDP, Kebbi North), who said he supported the passage of the budget, regretted that whereas Nigeria's budget had increased by over 400 per cent from N947 billion it spent in 1999, the increase had not brought any noticeable difference to the citizenry.
He also lamented the alleged spending of $8 billion of unappropriated funds as subsidy on kerosene by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
He said such unaccounted spending was one of the reasons that budgeting had not been effective in Nigeria. He also lamented that from $11.5 billion in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) in January 2013, only $2.5 billion was left in the account today.
But Senate spokesman, Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) mocked the APC senators as he urged the Senate to employ the strategy employed by the APC government in Rivers State, which according to him, presented a budget that the House of Assembly graciously “gave back to the governor within one hour”, in Government House, saying the 2014 budget in the same vein should just be handed to President Goodluck Jonathan following the APC’s example.
Also speaking, Senator Gyang Pwajok (Plateau North) said the N340 billion allocation to security and N68 billion to the judiciary did not reflect the reality on ground, adding these estimates were lower than what the two sectors deserved.
He also advised the federal government to emulate many states which he said had ensured that their capital votes were higher than their recurrent expenditure.
Commenting on the contributions of his colleagues, a senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the position taken by the senators was not an indication that the Appropriation Bill would be blocked or delayed as directed by the leadership of APC, but was reflective of the robust debate that is common in the Senate.
The debate on the budget is expected to continue today and tomorrow when the bill is expected to scale the second reading.
Meanwhile, in its first reaction to plans by some PDP senators to defect to APC, the Senate has said no single senator has formally indicated plans to cross carpet.
While responding to questions from journalists yesterday, Abaribe, said no one had written any defection letter, explaining that the only letter addressed to Senate President David Mark was personal and not about defection.
Abaribe also gave some insight into why the defecting senators had not formally made defection moves, saying they could not jointly sign a defection letter, as each senator must sign his own defection letter which he added would be read immediately on the floor of the Senate.
“The Senate, officially, is not aware of any letter about senators defecting because any letter that comes to the Senate will be read on the floor. So if senators write personal letters to the Senate President, that is strictly personal between them and the Senate President. They have not written it for reading on the floor of the Senate.
“So in the same manner that you have some awareness of what is going on is the same manner we are aware of it through the pages of newspapers. And I have had cause to say this before, that the process for anybody to move from one party to the other is very well stated in the Constitution and the process is open, clear and not in a way that can be misunderstood in any way.
“So until we get an open letter from each senator... Don't forget that every senator contested an election on his own. There wasn't a joint election. So senators can't write a joint letter to the Senate President about defection.
“It must be an individual letter for every person who has to leave and for whatever reason, the person would have to state his reason and also do it personally. And until we see that, we will assume that nobody is yet to go anywhere," he said.
He also commended the participation of all senators on all issues currently before the Senate despite the directive by APC to its senators to shut down consideration of executive bills and screening and confirmation of ministerial nominees and service chiefs.
He said: “We wish to commend all the senators who have truly shown that the Senate is not a place for partisan politics but a place for nationalists.
“And in that spirit, every member of the Senate, notwithstanding their political persuasion, contributed meaningfully today (yesterday), to the budget debate. The budget debate would still continue tomorrow (today) and on Thursday.
“Thereafter, it will be consigned to the committees and the next time we will have to get bill, the line-by-line debate on the budget would now be done. We assume and we expect that this will be done in the shortest possible time.”
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