Members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday disagreed over a request by President Goodluck Jonathan to cut the 2010 budget. They, however, deferred final voting on the matter pending the report of the Committee on Appropriations.
The committee, which is headed by Mr. Ademola Adeseun, was given up till Thursday (tomorrow) to submit the report.
The proposal to slash the budget of N4.6trn by about 40 per cent, passed through second reading at the House amid disagreements.
Ironically, a supplementary budget of N639.8bn was also debated by the House and referred to the Joint Committees on Appropriations/Finance for further scrutiny.
Out of the supplementary figure, the bulk of N507bn went to recurrent expenditure.
About N200bn of the money was allocated to settle the monetisation arrears of Power Holding Company of Nigeria workers and other public sector employees threatening to go on strike.
Another N10bn was set aside to mark Nigeria‘s 50th independence anniversary.
The balance of about N130bn in the supplementary proposal was allocated to projects left out in the original 2010 budget.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Mr. John Enoh, in defending the President‘s request, noted that there were challenges in meeting the revenue projections.
According to him, from an initial projection of N5.2tn, the revenue has dropped to N4.2tn.
Enoh added that the three tiers of government would collectively lose about 27 per cent of their share of revenue from the Federation Account by implication.
He explained that with another N639.8bn being required to fund the supplementary budget, government would have to “contend with the problem of five per cent deficit of GDP.”
However, the Chairman of the Committee on Gas Resources, Mr. Igo Aguma, disagreed, saying that what the government should tell Nigerians, was to admit that 2010 would be another year of “failed budget.”
“This budget has failed, even before starting it; by July, we will be in the third quarter and we are still here discussing budget,” he said.
Aguma observed that Jonathan’s request was unnecessary considering the fact that many of the projects in the budget were ongoing, “meaning that they were rolled over.”
He contended that rather than halt the entire process pending the review of the budget, government ought to have continued to execute projects within the limits of the funds available to it.
But the Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions, Mr. Cyril Maduabum, reminded the House that lawmakers reached an understanding with Jonathan to sign the budget last April and to submit a request for the review later.
He noted that the ”gentle-manly” agreement should be kept in the interest of Executive-Legislative harmony.
Maduabum said, “Let the amendment bill pass second reading first; the Committee on Appropriations can study the budget again and come up with recommendations.
“The issue of whether it is 40 per cent or 20 per cent that should be slashed can now be looked into by the committee.”
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