2018 Budget difficult to implement with NASS’ alterations, says Buhari
He accused the federal lawmakers of, among others, increasing the National Assembly budget from N125bn to N139.5bn, without any discussion with the Executive.
The President also accused them of injecting 6,403 projects of their own totalling N578bn into the national budget while making cuts amounting to N347bn in the allocations to 4,700 projects as submitted to them.
Buhari spoke shortly after signing the document
into law in his office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The President noted that many of the projects cut
were critical and might be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the
reduced allocation.
He regretted that some of the new projects inserted
by the National Assembly had not been properly conceptualised, designed and
cost and would therefore be difficult to execute.
The
President said, “As I mentioned during the presentation of the 2018
Appropriation Bill, we intend to use the 2018 Budget to consolidate the
achievements of previous budgets and deliver on Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and
Growth Plan 2017-2020.
“It is in this regard that I am concerned about
some of the changes that the National Assembly has made to the budget proposals
that I presented.
“The logic behind the constitutional direction
that budgets should be proposed by the Executive is that, it is the Executive
that knows and defines its policies and projects.
“Unfortunately, that has not been given much
regard in what has been sent to me. The
National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347bn in the allocations to 4,700
projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of
their own amounting to N578bn.
“Many of the projects cut are critical and may be
difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation. Some of the new projects inserted by the
National Assembly have not been properly conceptualised, designed and costed
and will therefore be difficult to execute.
“Furthermore, many of these new projects
introduced by the National Assembly have been added to the budgets of most MDAs
with no consideration for institutional capacity to execute them or the
incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.
“As it is, some of these projects relate to
matters that are the responsibility of the states and local governments, and
for which the Federal Government should therefore not be unduly burdened.”
Buhari cited examples of projects from which cuts
were made to include the provisions for some nationally/regionally strategic
infrastructure projects such as counterpart funding for the Mambilla Power
Plant, Second Niger Bridge/ancillary roads, the East-West Road, Bonny-Bodo
Road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Itakpe-Ajaokuta Rail Project which he said
were cut by an aggregate of N11.5bn .
Similarly, the President said provisions for some
ongoing critical infrastructure projects in Abuja, especially major arterial
roads and the mass transit rail project were cut by a total of N7.5bn.
He added that the provision for rehabilitation and
additional security measures for the United Nations Building by the FCT, Abuja
was cut by N3.9bn from N4bn to N100m.
This, he said, would make it impossible for the
Federal Government to fulfil its commitment to the UN on the project.
He added, “The provisions for various strategic
interventions in the health sector such as the upgrade of some tertiary health
institutions, transport and storage of vaccines through the cold chain supply
system, provision of anti-retroviral drugs for persons on treatment,
establishment of chemotherapy centres and procurement of dialysis consumables
were cut by an aggregate amount of N7.45bn.
“The provision for security infrastructure in the
104 unity schools across the country was
cut by N3bn at a time when securing our students against acts of terrorism
ought to be a major concern of government.
“The provision for the Federal Government’s National
Housing Programme was cut by N8.7bn.
“At a time
when we are working with Labour to address compensation-related issues, a total
of N5bn was cut from the provisions for Pension Redemption Fund and Public
Service Wage Adjustment.
““The provisions for Export Expansion Grant and
Special Economic Zones/Industrial Parks, which are key industrialisation
initiatives of this administration, were cut by a total of N14.5bn.
“The
provision for construction of the Terminal Building at Enugu Airport was cut
from N2bn to N500m which will further delay the completion of this critical
project.
“The take-off grant for the Maritime University in
Delta State, a key strategic initiative of the Federal Government, was cut from
N5bn to N3.4bn.
“About 70 new road projects have been inserted
into the budget of the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.
punch
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