By Henry Umoru & Emman Ovuakporie
But for the one week strike action of Nigerians against the removal of the subsidy on petrol, all indications were that they would have been taken for granted again by their government.

The strike action, which paralysed economic activities in almost all parts of the country, is yielding perpetual results as the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on appropriation drilled the headships of the MDAs.  Some of the budgets were further slashed and ministers were lampooned for superintending wastes in their ministries.

President Jonathan

And as the nation awaits the National Assembly to approve the 2012 N4.7 trillion budget estimate submitted last year by President Goodluck Jonathan, Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Enyinnaya Abaribe told Journalists that the budget will be ready before the end of this month.

Abaribe disclosed that Senate President David Mark has given all the Committees the matching order to submit their reports to the Senate Committee on Appropriation.

Few hours after the Senate Spokesperson assured Nigerians that the budget will be ready in the next couple of days, a bombshell was dropped by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Ahmed Maccido, PDP, Sokoto North, when he alleged that out of the N4.7 trillion budget estimate submitted last year to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan, some government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAS, secretly smuggled in over N1trillion projects into it.

According to him, over 40 percent of projects to be executed were not captured in the 2012 budget estimate, even as he described the situation as substantial changes in the budget, adding that the 2012 budget which was currently before the National Assembly may have been doctored.

Maccido alleged that the smuggled items may have pushed the 2012 fiscal estimate to about N5.7trillion, adding that the committee would subject the budget to what he termed a more thorough scrutiny to expunge all the unauthorised projects.

According to him, “we at committee level would jettison them because they are not in the original budget. The problem is that we are seeing projects that are not in the original version of the budget presented to us by President Goodluck Jonathan and substantial part of these projects are being smuggled into the budget by the MDAs and ministers . Over 40 percent of the projects in the budget are not in the original budget. And we are saying no to this.

“The items so smuggled into the budget are over N1trillion. So we are right now comparing the budget as originally presented by the president and the version presented by the MDAs. Unless these projects are there in the original budget, we are going to scrap them. It is no longer going to be business as usual.

“These people are just smuggling in projects that are not in the budget. And we are going to remove them.”

Prior to the submission of budget estimates by the MDAs, they were presented to the Budget office in the presidency for scrutiny where most of the estimates were slashed by 25%.  One of such was the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, ICPC which was slashed by well over N5billion.

The Acting Chairman of the Commission, Barrister Ekpo Nta told the Senator Victor Lar Committee on Drug, Narcotics and Financial Crimes that the Commission is now left with  N4,219,694,571.00 to spend this year, adding that the ICPC’s initial proposal to the Budget Office was N10,141,143,148.00 before it was dropped to the present level.

In his presentation to the Senator Smart Adeyemi led Committee on the Federal Capital Territory, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, Senator Bala Mohammed told the Committee that a total of N401,236,880,000.00 was proposed for its component of the 2012 National Budget to off-set the outstanding debts and to complete the on-going key projects, but the sum of N46,190,383,645.00 was allocated by the Budget Office or 11.47% of the expected proposal.

The Minister who complained of the short fall, stressed that if the total proposed 2012 Appropriation of N46,190,383,645.00 is granted to the FCTA, it will only be enough to settle 71.82% outstanding liabilities from the previous year.

But in the House of Representatives, it was another matter all together.

During the budget defence, the Bureau of Public reforms, BPRS, said it would require N4m to partition offices annually.  The Reps found this funny because the same Bureau had been making requests annually for the purchase of vehicles but could not account an outstanding N11.

Then there was the under-performing and embarrassing Nigeria Football Federation which opened a facebook account with N1.2m

But top of the wasteful pack was the Foreign Affairs ministry.  It requested for N4.7b for tuition fees for children in foreign missions.  The ministry also demanded for N2b multiple security votes.  The Reps demanded an appropriate reversal of both requests.

The ministry of Urban Planning wanted N4.4b for the completion of constituency projects but the Reps made it clear to the minister that the demand was fraught with fraud.  The minister, Amal Pepple, felt embarrassed

The members of the Committee on Housing and Urban Development expressed disappointment with the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development over the implementation of constituency projects in the country because the ministry asked for N8.4B for the completion of the constituency projects.

According to the lawmakers, the up-dated progress report presented by the ministry on the solar-powered street lights was fraught with ‘fraud’.

While the up-dated report showed an average of over 80 percent completion for the projects in the constituencies of the federation, over 70 percent of the lawmakers faulted the report.  Most members of the House Committee on Constituency Outreach faulted the report for returning 100 percent project completion in their constituencies as none was completed, while those completed were not functioning.,

Speaking at the maiden meeting between the committee and the ministry, Chairman of the committee, Hajia Aisha Dahiru Ahmed, had said the era of ‘business as usual’ is over.

She said the House of Representatives of the Seventh Assembly would not allow a situation whereby projects that were supposed to touch people’s lives would be turned against the lawmakers on account of lapses from the supervising ministries.

“The importance of this meeting is derived from the function of the committee because the committee is very central, very sensitive and dear to the heart of the House of Reps of the Seventh Assembly as it covers every member of the House, every constituency of the country as well as every Nigerian.

This is because whatever happens here has either a negative or positive effect on the leadership of the nation beginning from the President to the Councilor in the Local Government, to our own constituents, that is the electorates and the honourable members in the constituency who stand to win or lose from the activities of this committee.

“The constituency projects are the only proof of governance and performance rate by our electorates”.

Ms Amal Pepple the new Minister of the ministry was so visibly embarrassed that she quickly exonerated herself from the activities of the ministry before she assumed duties there.  She told members of the committee that it is not her style to do things shoddily that corrections would be made as soon as possible.

Apparently conscious of the gap that has been created in the budget because of the partial failure to make money from the withdrawal of subsidy on petrol, the federal government last week slashed the 2012 budget by N100 billion.

The revision, according to the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the cuts became necessary as a result of the need to make provision for subsidy arising from the partial deregulation under which the price of PMS was reduced from N141 per litre to N97 per litre, disclosing that the campaign against waste and leakages has also notched up significantly with  N74 billion saved through biometric verification of workers and pensioners which has simultaneously led to a reduction in the pension budget while improving the processes for paying genuine pensioners.

The minister explained that the 2012 Fiscal Framework earlier submitted to NASS assumed 100% subsidy removal and only N155billion was provided for carryover of 2011 subsidy payments. The estimated figure for 2012 is now N888 billion inclusive of some carry-over from 2011.

On revenue, she said several steps were taken to squeeze further resources from revenue generating agencies. IGR was increased by N53.3billon from N393.46billon to N446.78billon as a result of an ongoing engagement with these agencies.

The Pension Task Force made a recovery of about N151bn of which N74bn has already been reflected in the budget.

On the expenditure, the minister said transfers were reduced by N25.34billon; Service Wide votes were reduced by N24.39bn from N337.08bn to N312.69billon and overhead vote was reduced by N17.75billion.

This comes as a result of capital vote was reduced by N35.53billion from N1.319 trillion to N1.284 trillion due to the removal of administrative capital items such as: Procurement of fridges, fans, vehicles, etc; construction of office building (except on-going projects); purchase of land and office furniture and purchase of computers

These efforts resulted in savings of about N100bn, with aggregate expenditure coming down from N4.749trillion to N4.649trillon.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala also explained the process through which the estimated amount of subsidy for 2012 was arrived at. She stated that after extensive consultations with NNPC and PPRA, the amount required for 2012 was estimated using 2008 as baseline year.

That year was used as a baseline year as it appears that subsidy payments and other associated factors were fairly stable. Based on several assumptions and parameters, the amount of Subsidy to be provided in 2012 is N656.30billion while the revised amount to be provided for 2011 carryover is N231.8billion.

This means that the total projected expenditure on subsidy is N888.1billion, of which N155bn is already provided in the 2012 Budget, resulting in a net addition of N733.1billion. The FGN share of the projected subsidy expenditure is N374.73billion.

Concluding, Dr Okonjo-Iweala stated that in spite of the many challenges, government is determined to be prudent while pursuing the best interests of Nigerians.

SENATOR ABARIBE AND MACCIDO AND OKONJO-IWEALA