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Reps decry low implementation of 2013 capital budget

By on September 17, 2013
House of Reps

House of Reps

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, in Abuja on Thursday decried the low implementation level of the 2013 capital budget.

Tambuwal, who made the remark in an address of welcome to members from the seven-week recess, said that the budget implementation still remained a sore point of governance in the country.

“The level of implementation of the 2013 capital appropriation is below expectation given the early submission by the Executive and early passage by the Legislature.

“We have consistently advised that the procurement process be employed in a value added manner rather than the adherence to and unproductive worship of procedures,” he said.

Tambuwal said that in spite of the early passage of the budget by the National Assembly, not much progress had been made in that regard.

“So far by the information and statistics at our disposal, there is no justification for this state of affairs,’’ he said.

The speaker said that based on the poor state of implementation of the budget, all committees of the House would proceed on oversight to all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

“However, in order to be comprehensively guided, all the committees of the House will proceed on one-week of oversight to the MDAs.

He said that report generated from the oversight would be collated by the committees on Legislative Budget and Research, and Legislative Compliance.

According to him, the committee will submit a joint report to the plenary for consideration.

The report would guide the House in the consideration of the 2014 budget proposals being expected in October from the executive.

He cautioned members of the House to exercise some restraints to avoid distraction as the 2015 general elections were approaching.

“I wish the members will exercise the highest restraint to the obvious distractions that the approaching 2015 is bound to bring.

“This has become necessary so that we do not lose our focus in the diligent pursuit of our mandate.

“The proper timing for 2015 will surely come and at that time, we shall do the needful,” he said.

He said that the ongoing crisis in the ruling PDP had further confirmed the weak internal party democracy in political parties in the country.

“This is not all together unexpected given the approach of 2015. What is worrisome however is that these squabbles have further exposed the weaknesses of internal party democratic culture and inter-party intolerance.

“These are viruses that we must resolve to dispense with in order to sanitise the political space, ” he said.

He reiterated the commitment of the House to further amend the Electoral Act to enhance a strong democratic culture.

“We also hope to amend the electoral act again to see how we can ensure that no one takes unfair advantage of the existing loopholes to rig elections.

“The fact is that until we can ensure that each vote counts in this country, the people will always be taken for granted by their leaders.

“We, therefore, want to produce a solid electoral act, comparable to any in the world and able to stand the text of time,” he said.

Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan has presented the 2014-2016 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) to the House through a letter read on the floor of the House by Tambuwal.( NAN)