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Jonathan may sign 2014 budget this week

By on May 20, 2014

There are indications that President Goodluck Jonathan may sign the 2014 appropriation bill into law this week.

The Senate had on April 9 passed the bill, raising the amount in the fiscal document from the N4.642tn submitted by Jonathan to the National Assembly on December 19, 2013 to N4.695tn.

Highlights of the budget as passed by the upper chamber are statutory transfers, N408.68bn; debt servicing, N712bn; recurrent expenditure, N2.454tn; and capital expenditure, N1.119tn.

The lawmakers had tinkered with the N2.43tn submitted by the executive for recurrent expenditure, increasing it to N2.454tn.

It also raised the capital expenditure to N1.119tn from the N1.10tn earlier proposed.

The changes had made the President to withhold his assent to the document pending the resolution of the grey areas.

The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, confirmed the development last week when he said the distortions were made in areas that were considered very serious, hence the need for the executive to look into them to avoid possible negative impacts on the implementation of the budget.

But a source at the Budget Office of the Federation told our correspondent on Sunday that projects, which he described as unnecessary, were inserted into the budget by the lawmakers.

For instance, the source said as soon as the budget was passed, some of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the government had complained about the movement of funds by the lawmakers from projects that were critical to the government’s transformation agenda.

The source, who preferred not to be named since he was not permitted to speak officially on the matter, said, “Following the passage of the budget by the lawmakers, it was resent to the various MDAs for analysis.

“Most of them complained that money was moved from various infrastructural projects without consultation and that this would have adverse effect on the programmes of the government. Don’t forget that this would be the last budget to be implemented by this administration since we are in a pre-election year.

“So, when you have money moved around in such a manner, there is a need to address it before the budget is signed, and since that has been done and going by the time lost, there is every possibility that the budget will be signed this week.”

Another source at the Ministry of Finance told our correspondent that most of the contentious issues raised in the budget by the various MDAs had been sorted out by the Budget Office of the Federation.

The source noted that the final budget document would be ready on Monday (today) for transmission to the President.

The source, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity as he was not permitted to speak officially on the issue, said, “You will recall that the budget was passed about a month ago and from all indications, we don’t have the luxury of time.

“So, what we did was to look at the contentious areas critically in the interest of the nation and we have made significant progress in that area.

“In fact, we were supposed to have bound the final copy on Friday but we couldn’t do that; but that would be done by Monday and sent to the President for approval. So, barring any last minute change, we believe that the budget will be signed before the end of this week.”

Efforts to get the comment of the Federal Ministry of Finance were not successful as calls and text messages sent to the Special Adviser on Media to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, did not go through as of the time of filing this report.

 

 

[Punch]