Yar'Adua may present 2010 budget on November 19
From Mathias Okwe, Azimazi Momoh Jimoh and Terhemba Daka, Abuja
THE Budget Office of the Federation has reported a loss of N205.238 billion revenue by the Federal Government. It attributed the development to the continuing global economic crisis, which has adversely affected the patronage of Nigeria's main revenue earner, crude oil, which price has plummeted at the international market.
The development also adversely affected the performance or delivery of the capital votes implementation under the quarter which ended in June this year, according to the Director-General of the Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogu.
He said, however, that the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) managed to record a below average implementation of 43 per cent of capital votes expected of them during the quarter. The performance is nevertheless about 20 per cent better than the first quarter performance.
Okogu said: "As already indicated, falling revenue projections were a major feature of the budget during the first half of 2009. The aggregate revenue available for distribution to the three tiers of government fell short of projected estimate of N1,791.7 billion by N461.33 billion (or 25.75 per cent). At the Federal Government budget level, oil revenue under-performed by N205.23 billion relative to the projected level of N441.38 billion.
"Several key ministries showed strong performance during the period. Progress was made in the execution of important road projects such as the East-West Road, the dualism of which is expected to be completed next year. Although the leap cannot be described as huge, it is noteworthy that capital budget implementation for the quarter averaged 42.92 per cent, being N193.08 billion out of N449.88 billion cash-backed by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. This is an improvement of about 20 per cent over the first quarter performance.
"Quite significant is the progress being recorded on projects directly related to the implementation of the seven-point agenda. It will be recalled that a capital vote of 93.2 per cent of the 2009 Budget was allocated to priority sectors like Transport, Power, Works, Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Police, Food Security (Agriculture and Water Resources), the Niger Delta, and Human Capital Development (Education and Health). The report shows that some sectors are beginning to show visible signs of the attention being devoted to them. These include the FCT, Agriculture, Niger Delta, Education and Health.
"Of the 44 Federal MDAs assessed, 12 of them utilised over 70 per cent of the capital vote released to them. Three - FCT, Aviation and Niger Delta - improved from below average performance to 70.85 per cent, 77.25 per cent and 100 per cent respectively. MDAs, which need to do more to meet their targets, include Works, Power, Police, Education, and Transport.
"In accordance with the vision of Mr. President, the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office of the Federation are determined to work with the other MDAs to ensure that clear and visible progress is made in the areas which will improve the lot of Nigerians in a systematic and sustainable way," Okogu further said.
Meanwhile, the Senate announced yesterday that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua may on November 19 present the 2010 budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly. But the Upper Legislative chamber has expressed dissatisfaction over what it called a very poor performance of Budget 2009.
Briefing journalists on the closed-door meeting the Senate held with the Minister of Finance, Dr. Mansur Muhtar and members of the Economic Team, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Ayogu Eze, said the President would also submit a request to the National Assembly for the removal of some funds from the 2009 Appropriation Act for other uses.
Eze said the Senate also admitted that the lapses and failures recorded by the Yar'Adua administration in budget performance were largely due to the massive corruption and inefficiency in the civil service.
The Senate also linked the budget non-performance to the bureaucratic bottlenecks in the Bureau for Public Procurement regarding execution of some capital projects.
Eze said: "One other agency that received lot of knocks from a lot of senators is the Due Process Office (DPP). That office has become a due process delay office. It is no longer an office that facilitates the process and award of contracts. It has become, in the opinion of senators, a clog in the administration of contracts."
On the performance of the budget, Eze said: "The Senate is not satisfied with budget performance, and neither is the minister himself satisfied with the budget performance because in some places, the performance is as low as 15 per cent, in some others 27 and in others 30 something. He did tell us about some places where performance may have hit about 70 something per cent, but even in our minds that is quite doubtful."
On the 2010 budget proposal, Eze said: "We are also expecting that with all things going well, the President of Nigeria and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces will present the 2010 Budget to the National Assembly on November 19 and after that work can now commence effectively."
He added that the proposed virement and supplementary budget proposal were to take care of critical issues, including the post-amnesty project.
"About 1.00 p.m. or thereabout, we shut our doors to discuss with the Minister of Finance and his team. We discussed a number of crucial issues... No.1, the government is going to bring a request for virement because certain crucial projects had to be attended to in the light of certain developments. One of them being the amnesty and the necessity to consolidate the gains of amnesty in the Niger Delta region with certain projects and contracts."
However, President Yar'Adua has again asked for the endorsement of N352.85 billion as another supplementary appropriation to the 2009 budget from the House of Representatives.
The House, in June 2009 just before going on its yearly recess, passed a supplementary appropriation of about N102 billion requested by the President.
Of the N102 billion, Yar'Adua said over N97 billion was for additional recurrent expenditure with the remaining N4.9 billion for additional capital projects for the year ending December 31, 2009.
The earlier supplementary appropriation also has N10 billion provisional disarmament funds for the Niger Delta amnesty package, while N2.4 billion was to supplement funds for the development and launch of a high resolution satellite - Nigeria SAT-2.
Also, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU's) settlement, and the multi-year tariff order drew the largest allocations of over N21 billion and N30 billion in that order.
But President Yar'Adua in the letter requesting for fresh additional funds to the House yesterday said that he was making the request because of a number of factors, including peace in the Niger Delta; the need to put in place strategic interventions geared towards addressing the transitional costs which would accompany the envisaged reforms in the downstream petroleum sector, as well as meeting additional expenditure needs that have emerged."
The President in the letter also sought the endorsement of the House to finance strategic interventions aimed at addressing supply constraints and unemployment in the context of the global economic meltdown.
Yar'Adua explained that details of expenditures and the Niger Delta amnesty programme were being worked out, while areas of focus include the East-West highway, coastal road and highway; East-West rail line, inland water way transportation infrastructure, reclamation to link all communities, dredging of canals, housing and land reclamation for oil producing communities, and environmental clean-up activities.
"Some of the expenditure items in the supplementary appropriation would be utilized to offset government obligations, including pension arrears; meet funding shortfall, and provide for counterpart funding," he said, adding that approving the expenditure items would help in alleviating the adverse impact of the global economic crisis, and ensure effective day-to-day operations of some MDAs.
President Yar'Adua said the proposed expenditure items would be financed from the Federal Government's share of the Excess Crude Account, proceeds of soft loan from the World Bank, and the use of existing issuance of Federal Government's Bonds by the Debt Management Office, as well as a balance of unspent funds from the 2009 appropriation.
