The Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Budget and Research, Mr. Timothy Golu, has disagreed with the executive arm that paucity of funds caused the poor implementation of 2017 budget estimate.
While contending that there is no way the MDAs would start implementation of any budget without money, the lawmaker, who represents Pankshin / Kanke / Kanan federal constituency of Plateau State, blamed the executive for the problem associated with the 2017 budget implementation.
He said: “Lack of money is not the main problem, government is slow in taking decision, it is slow in coordinating the agencies, it is slow in coordinating its policies. The government is just slowing down most of these things.
“I believe that if the government can accelerate action, if there can be proper coordination between the ministry of finance and the budget office and then the MDAs, these things could be sorted out.”
The lawmaker decried the situation whereby everybody in the executive is saying different things, stressing that they are not on the same page as far as budget data is concerned.
“So that is part of the problem; I don’t see us passing this budget before the end of the year, because we need to do a good job. They have not submitted it, yet they are talking about passage.
“We are yet to start work on MTEF-FSP; the relevant committees are about to work on the MTEF-FSP now, which should precede the submission of the main budget, so it means that we would be handling the budget together with the MTEF-FSP, which to us is not the problem, because we can do it.
“But to have enough time for the various committees to do their work, it would be difficult to pass this budget before December 31, because if we rush now and do an untidy job, Nigerians would not be happy. So we need enough time to handle the items, one by one, because the national assembly more than ever before is putting an eagle eye on every item,” he remarked.
Further, the legislator disclosed that the House of Representatives is doing what is referred to in port parlance as destination inspection of the budget items, stressing that since it is a law, “if we don’t do it well, the implementation would be bad and it would affect all of us.”
He disclosed that the leadership of the National Assembly has resolved to sit down and analyze in details, every item so that by the time it becomes law, you know that it would be implementable.
“That in itself is a problem, because there should be clear implementation of the 2017 budget to give way for the coming budget, because if the previous budget is not implemented then there would be no clearance for the new budget to take off. So, if they want to harmonize or roll over some things, I just don’t know how they are going to do it. “
On the level of implementation of the 2017 budget, Golu stated: “We have not heard anything about the 2017 budget yet. There is nothing happening. We have not heard about the implementation up until now, even 10 percent implementation has not been done and they are planning to bring 2018 budget.”
Some critical minds in the National Assembly believe that the approval given by FEC, which suggested that the executive had concluded action on the 2018 budget proposal and ready to present same to the Legislature amounted to turning the law upside down, which they say could kick start serious problems for the 2018 budget.