By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

The face-off between the National Assembly and the presidency over the 2016 budget has put the country, its economy and citizens at the receiving end. With the legislators opening themselves to the truth as to the schemes of their committees on appropriation, an opportunity for rapprochement is now in the offing.

Since the 2016 budget proposal document was presented at the joint session of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari on 22nd December 2015, there have been controversies on almost on a daily basis.

The first major stir was the alleged disappearance of the budget document at the Senate. The second was the revelation of multiple versions of the budget in the National Assembly which was explained by the presidency on the fact that the initial details submitted by the presidency were riddled with errors.

There were also allegations of padding, the disavowal by some ministers of proposals emanating from their ministries and when they were finally approved by the two chambers, the insistence of the president of seeing the details before his assent.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki; Speaker, House of Representative, Dogara exchanging pleasantries with President Buhari during the presentation of N6.08trn 2016 budget to NASS, on December 22, 2015.

The controversies came to a climax with the revelation of the disappearance of some critical projects as submitted by the presidency, the foremost of which was the Calabar to Lagos rail project.

The disappearance of the project has been followed by accusation and counter-accusation on the disappearance of the rail project. While the executive claims that it passed the proposal to the National Assembly, the lawmakers said that the budget proposal from President Buhari did not in any way capture the rail project.

While the legislators initially reacted with unison, over a period of days, that unity began to break as legislators mostly from the South began to narrow their views to the fact that the executive conveyed the projects to the Senate and House committees following an agreement reached with presidency officials on how to correct the errors contained in the first budget document first submitted to the National Assembly.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Land Transport, Senator Gbenga Ashafa was the first to break ranks with his colleagues when he affirmed that the proposal for the rail project though not in the initial document was, however, subsequently submitted to the committee which approved it and forwarded it in its report submitted to the Senate Committee on Appropriation, headed by Senator Danjuma Goje.

In his narrative of what happened, Ashafa in a statement issued on Monday said:

“I confirm that the Lagos to Calabar rail line was not in the original document that was presented to the National Assembly by the Executive. However subsequently at the budget defense session before the Senate Committee on Land Transport, the Hon. Minister for Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, did inform the committee of the omission of the Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation project and indeed sent a supplementary copy of the ministry’s budget to the committee which contained the said project.

“The minister noted that the amount needed for the counterpart funding for both the Lagos to Kano and Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation projects was in the sum of 120 Billion Naira, being 60 Billion Naira per project.

“While the committee did not completely agree with all the changes made in the subsequent document, being fully aware of the critical importance of the rail sector to the development of our dear country, distinguished members of the Senate Committee on Land Transport keyed into the laudable (Lagos to Calabar, rail modernisation) project and found ways of appropriating funds for the project without exceeding the envelope provided for the ministry.

“In so doing, the committee observed that the Lagos to Kano rail rehabilitation project had been allocated the sum of N52 Billion Naira as against the sum of 60 billion which the Hon. Minister requested as counterpart funding while no allocation whatsoever was made for the Lagos to Calabar rail line.

“Hence, the sum of 54 billion Naira that was discovered by the Senate Committee on Land Transport to be floating in the budget of the Ministry of Transportation as presented by the Executive was injected into augmenting the funds needed for counterpart funding of both projects (Lagos to Kano and Lagos to Calabar Rail modernisation), as at the time the committee defended its report before the Senate Committee on Appropriation. The Lagos to Calabar rail modernisation project was therefore included in the Senate Committee on Land Transports recommendation to the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

“With regard to the Idu to Kaduna rail completion, the Senate Committee on Land Transport did not interfere with what was provided for in the budget as sent by the executive, being approximately 18 Billion Naira hence I am equally surprised to read on the pages of the newspapers that the amount allocated to the said project was reduced by 8 Billion Naira.

“While I would have preferred to wait till Tuesday 12th April 2016 when the National Assembly reconvenes in order to have the benefit of viewing the details of the budget that was conveyed to the executive as passed, I am compelled to place the facts in proper perspective as it relates to the activities of the Senate Committee on Land Transport.

“Without prejudice to the considerations and powers of the Senate Committee on Appropriations with regard to the appropriations process, the foregoing is the true reflection of what transpired at the committee level with respect to the Land Transport Sector of the Ministry of Transport, “ the statement said.

Remarkably, as the controversy deepened, Rep. Abdulmumin Jibrin, the chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation kept to his singsong that the proposal for the projects was not contained in the initial budget document presented by the president. His equivalent in the Senate, Senator Danjuma Goje was, however, mute. Especially so after Ashafa made his assertion that the project was submitted in the report of his committee.

Not surprisingly, the legislators began to break ranks after Ashafa’s comments and in the Senate, the southern legislators who met in geopolitical caucuses between Tuesday night and Wednesday resolved to back the president on the issue.

While the senators were circumspect, it was not so in the House when the issue finally came to the fore at a closed-door session last Wednesday.

Members according to multiple sources took turns to reprimand Jibrin on what they alleged was an avoidable faceoff with the presidency.

The ire of the legislators was especially stoked by a text message purportedly sent out by Jibrin to some committee chairmen asking them to keep mute on changes made by the committee on appropriation on the reports submitted by the House committees.

The text read in part: “To all Hon Chairmen and Dep Chairmen of Standing Committees: As you are aware, we have transmitted details of budget 2016. After consultation with the leadership of both Chambers, the reports of all standing Committees were sustained in the details. Though all items submitted by Committees were retained, you will see additional inputs that were necessary to be accommodated via little cuts. You are therefore enjoined to be prepared to justify reports both in media and elsewhere; in case, the executive arm disagrees.

We are already justifying your reports, but you must join in doing so, especially in the media…”
At the end of the closed-door session on Wednesday, the House mandated the speaker to seek an audience with the president towards resolving the issue. It was a big step back from the earlier insistence by Jibrin that there would be no going back and the only option for the president was for the president to submit a supplementary appropriation bill.

So given the crack in the earlier resolution of the two chambers to stick to what they claimed as the rules, the revelations of the untidy stance of the committees of appropriation in the two houses have now portrayed the lack of tact on the part of the legislature.

The presidency was further miffed by the fact that the president led a delegation to China partly to seek Chinese government funding for the project which the Federal Government was prepared to give N60 billion as government counterpart funding for fiscal 2016.

With the president expected back on seat this weekend, the Senate and the House may have now sought tact to resolve the differences between the two arms of government and in that way, the grass that has suffered would find some relief!