ABUJA – Four months after it was laid at the table by President Mohammadu Buhari, 2016 Budget was yesterday passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly.
The N6,060,677,358,227 worth fiscal instrument is N17,002,641,773 short of the N6,077,680,000,000 total package earlier submitted by President Buhari on December 22, 2015.
Components that make up the approved budget included Recurrent Expenditure – N2,646,389,236,196; Capital Expenditure- N1,587,598,122,031; Debt Service – N1,475,320,000,000; Statutory Transfers- N351,370,000,000; Fiscal Deficit – N2,204,936,925,711.16; and Deficit/GDP – 2.1%.
Also benchmarks of US$38 per barrel of crude; daily crude production of 2.2 million barrels per day; and the exchange rate of N197 to the dollar as earlier proposed by the executive have all been approved.
Of the N1,475,320,000,000 Debt Service Package, N113,440,000,000 has been earmarked for Sinking Fund to retire maturing loans, while N1,307,400,000,000 is proposed for Do entice Debts, and N54,480,000,000 for Foreign Debts.
In the Recurrent (Non-Debt) Expenditure table, Service-Wide Vote takes the lion share of N983,120,000,000 of which, Federal Ministry of Interior has N451.9 billion, Education – N367.7bn, Defence – N312.2bn and Presidential Amnesty Programme – N20bn.
Also in the Capital Expenditure profile, Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing gets the lion share of N422.964bn, followed by Transport – N188.67bn, while Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation And Fiscal Commission gets N19,883,417.
Defence is also to share N130.8bn from the Capital Expenditure along side with, Agriculture – N46.17bn, Education – N35.43bn, while Federal Executive Bodies are to share N11,647,427,678.
During debate however, it was discovered that overheads of certain Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) were reduced, such that they might not be able to pay salaries when the Budget implementation begins.
In his response however, Chairman of Senate Appropriation Committee, Sen. Danjuma Goje, explained that short fall could be met from the Service-Wide Votes.
Presenting the Budget earlier, Sen. Goje observed that although it was the first by President Buhari, it came late and fraught with errors that had to be corrected, to make it presentable.
“The 2016 Appropriation Bill, after its presentation to the National Assembly, was seen to be fraught with some inconsistencies from the MDAs, given the subsequent reference by the. To different versions of the Budget.
This was also noticed at the level of the sub-committees. This is strange and goes against proper budgetary procedures and processes with attendant implications”, continued.
Sen. Goje further notified the Senate that “the 2016 Appropriation Bill contained a number of omissions, particularly in the area of personnel cost,. Though the Appropriations Committee has filled some of the gaps, there are many outstanding cases which could raise serious concern in the course of the year”.
He therefore recommended that “subsequent Budgets should be submitted in strict compliance with the provision of the Fiscal Responsibility Act to enable the National Assembly conduct proper engagement and to conclude the budget processes in good time.”
“There should be proper engagement in future between the Budget Office of the Federation and the MDAs on budget contents, in order to avoid what appears to be a disconnect between them in the processing of budget proposals”, he continued, “this will also ensure that the Budget proposal between the two parties is in harmony”.
Moreso, the Senate Appropriation Committee Chairman enjoined the Government to endeavour to increase and diversify its revenue generation streams, given the yawning gap between collectible revenue and actual collections”.
