By Clara Nwachukwu & Henry Umoru
ABUJA-THE Senate, yesterday, said that the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs of the Executive arm, have only implemented 30 per cent of the 2012 budget as against claims of slightly above 40 per cent implementation by the Presidency.
ABUJA-THE Senate, yesterday, said that the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs of the Executive arm, have only implemented 30 per cent of the 2012 budget as against claims of slightly above 40 per cent implementation by the Presidency.
There were strong indications that the strained relationship between the Executive and the National Assembly may affect the early passage of the 2013 budget which was presented by President Goodluck Jonathan last Wednesday to a Joint Session of the National Assembly.
Speaking with Journalists in Abuja, yesterday, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Ahmed Maccido who disclosed that the figures were collated from documents submitted to the Senate by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, said: “I believe even the Executive would agree with the fact that the budget has not reached more than 30 per cent implementation.”
President Jonathan laying the Budget Proposal before the National Assembly
He continued: The figure came from documents given to us from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. We all have them because there were releases, there are cash-backings, there is the actual budget itself and based on all these, that was where we got the 30 per cent budget implementation figure from. So, based on those figures, we made our deductions and arrived at that figure.
“The onus rests on the Senate to verify that because, as it is now, we are going on oversight functions to the MDAs and not just sitting in minister’s office and bringing documents for us to look at. No, we will go out to the field to see what is happening.
“If, for instance, N1 billion has been earmarked for a particular project, say, a road, we want to go to site to see for ourselves the level of work that has been done on that particular road. Is the work on that road commensurate with the N1 billion budgeted? If not, we will come back and report to Senate that, that road is not up to the amount earmarked for it.
“We will make our own deductions and conclusions and pass them to the Senate. From there, we will know what to do. As I said earlier, it is not a matter of agreeing with the House or the Executive but actually, we have the same stand.
“All we are going to do is to debate the budget estimates and after that, we will not touch the budget again until such a time when we have finished with our oversight functions.
“These are issues we need to take up with the Executive this year. As we go on, we make improvements on issues of our workings on the budget, not just on gas. There are issues such as the way the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the Excess Crude Account are being managed. All these issues will be raised with the President this year.
“We are going to sit down, deliberate on these issues as we go on working on the budget. So, we are going to raise the issue when we meet with the Executive and we are going to insist on genuine and real answers so that we can tell Nigerians what is happening to their money.”
It was gathered, yesterday, that the Senators are not in a hurry to pass the 2013 N4.92 trillion budget until its 56 standing committees conclude oversight function on MDAs.
The House of Representatives, however, began consideration of the 2013 budget on Tuesday.
Asked if the level of implementation cuts across all budget sub-heads, Senator Maccido said: “I am talking specifically with respect to capital expenditure. They have no problem with recurrent spending.” Senate as gathered may commence the Second Reading of the 2013 budget today.
2013 Budget: Senate decries 50% slash in DPR allocations
Meanwhile, as the furore over the 2013 budget heightens, the Senate has condemned the 50 percent slash in budgetary allocations to the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, the regulator of the petroleum industry.
The Senate also frowned at the inability of the agency to enforce gas flaring penalties and promised to assist the agency to enforce gas flaring penalty to enhance cleaner environment.
The Senate Committee on Gas during an oversight visit to the DPR Headquarters in Lagos on Tuesday, noted that the continued slash in the allocations to the regulator, is not only weakening the agency, but also contributing to the spate of abandoned capital projects, which should have enhanced its operational effectiveness.
Speaking on behalf of the committee, its Chairman, Senator Nkechi Nwogu, who led her team on the verification of the level of implementation of the appropriations from the 2012 budget allocated to the DPR, argued that the agency required more funding if it was to be a truly world class and independent regulatory body as obtained in other oil producing countries.
She said:”It would be unfortunate when we look into their budget and see that it has been slashed like he (DPR director) said.
Having come here today with the committee members and having seen what they are doing, having seen what they require to do in terms of getting them equipped for the proper surveillance and doing a good regulatory job, they need money to be properly independent; they need money to acquire some of the equipment that will help them to procure data as at when required, they need more funds to ensure that they will transparently and properly monitor these IOCs.
“A typical example is the issue of this gas monitoring equipment, (Real Time Monitoring Equipment) before now, DPR used to rely on the figures obtained from the IOCs and I am happy that the government of this country through DPR, via the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, was able to say that there is need for them to have their own independently installed equipment to be able to know how much gas we produce in this country.”
Earlier, the Director, DPR, Mr. Osten Olorunsola, had raised an alarm on the continued slash of the agency’s budget, saying that the agency will not be able to continue with ongoing capital projects, and will lead to more projects abandonment.
He revealed that since 2010, the industry regulator has continued to suffer budgetary slash. He said: “In 2010, the DPR vote was $9billion, by 2011, it was slashed by 50 per cent. In 2012, we were allocated N4.6billion, and in 2013, almost 50 per cent slash is again being proposed, which will reduce the allocation to N2.5billion.
“At this rate, we will only function by the grace of God, and we will have to cancel more capital projects because there will be no money to fund them.”
Budgetary implementation
With regard to the 2012 appropriations, Olorunsola revealed that only about 45 per cent of the total votes had been released to the agency or N1.9billion of the N4.6billion as at mid-September.
On conclusion of inspection and visit to the National Data Repository, NDR, Senator Nwogu, expressed her committee’s delight on the level of execution of capital projects.
According to her: “We are impressed with the level of budgetary implementation, but the budget votes is not reflective of the amount of appropriation required for DPR to make it a world class industry regulator.”
Explaining the rationale for giving DPR a pass mark with budgetary, she said, “the figures are there as you and I have seen them and they have about 50 per cent or 45 per cent releases and out of that, they have utilised, as we speak today, 50 per cent of that.
If you look at it in the first instance, you will think there is no performance but when they explained why the figure was that, we saw for instance the issue of capital project in respect to their head office being built in Abuja, where we appropriated in the 2012, N1.5 billion and the property has been revoked by the ministry of FCT which is one of the things that we are going to look into because they do deserve a presence in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.”
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