Budget: Lawmakers’ constituency projects stalling implementation –FG
David Mark and Aminu Tambuwal
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The
Federal Government on Monday said that the insistence of new members of
the National Assembly to initiate constituency projects in their names,
rather than continuing with projects in the names of the their
predecessors, had been hampering implementation of the 2012 budget.
The government also said
the various deductions it made from the budget had made it difficult to
respond to emergencies such as Boko Haram insurgencies, fire disasters
and auto crashes.
Minister of Health,
Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, made the submission while briefing State House
correspondents shortly after he presented a report to President Goodluck
Jonathan on the implementation of the 2012 Budget by his ministry.
The implementation of
the 2012 Budget has been a subject of controversy between the Executive
and the Legislative arms of government with the House of Representatives
threatening to begin impeachment proceedings against the President if
he fail to implement the budget 100 per cent by September.
Chukwu said most of the
lawmakers’ constituency projects which fell under his ministry like
building of new primary health care centres were being handled by the
National Primary Health Care Development Agency.
He said since the
procurement process required that there must be designs for the projects
before the bidding process could start and contracts awarded, it would
take a long time for construction to start.
He said that was why the
President was of the view that rather than initiating new projects,
lawmakers should allow the government to concentrate on ongoing ones and
finishing them in record time.
He said, “You cannot
bring up procurement for construction if there is no design. So these
things take time and many people have said if even you remove human
factors, if you just follow the main Procurement Act, just to get that
design will take you between 12 and 14 weeks.
“So you can understand
why a budget that started being implemented in May as of July you may
not have got to the stage of awarding contracts.
“There are constituency
projects that have not been completed; if you rather insist that we do
new projects obviously there will not be enough money to complete those
other previous constituency projects that are there.”
Also, the Minister of
Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Monday again spoke on the
controversy over the 2012 budget implementation, submitting that the
government would not toy with public funds.
The minister, who
explained the slow release of funds for capital projects, said that the
budget was being implemented in a manner that would enhance the best
interest of Nigerians.
The minister’s comment
is coming barely 24 hours after the House of Representatives faulted her
claim that the 2012 budget had achieved 56 per cent implementation
rate.
The Information
Committee Chairman of the House, Zakari Mohammed, had noted that only
N324bn of the N404bn released so far for capital project had been
cash-backed in July.
He said, “This was the
grouse of the House. We are in the seventh month, going to the eighth
month of the year; out of N1.5tn, you have cash-backed only N324bn. That
is not good enough; that is the point that is being made. The budget
performance is not encouraging.
“It is not true that the Executive arm has implemented as of today 56 per cent of the 2012 budget as widely reported.”
But in a statement
issued by her Senior Special Assistant on Communications, Mr. Paul
Nwabuiku, the minister explained that her objective was to ensure a
prudent management of the Federal Government budget.
The statement said,
“Nigerians should be reassured that the 2012 budget is being managed in a
way that protects and enhances the best interests of the country.
“Responding to concerns
raised in some quarters recently, the Coordinating Minister for the
Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated that
transparency and prudence remain the key priorities of the Federal
Government in the management of the 2012 budget.
“Our objective is to
achieve both higher budget implementation and better management of the
country’s resources. We will not toy with public resources because they
belong to all Nigerians”.
The minister explained
that the improvement in implementation ratio from 39.2 per cent by the
end of May to 56 per cent utilisation of cash-backed resources by June
20 was made possible by the direct leadership of President Goodluck
Jonathan who was personally leading the drive for better budget
performance.
The statement added,
“She expressed confidence that there will be further improvement in the
level of implementation before the end of the year.
“The minister emphasised
that to maximise results, the ministry is careful and methodical in
releasing funds to Ministries, Departments and Agencies. She stressed
that given the rate of utilisation, there is still room for more
implementation.
“She reiterated that the
Federal Ministry of Finance is not holding any budgeted funds back and
that more releases of funds will be made in the near future.”
Meanwhile, the Senate
Committee on Appropriation has invited Okonjo-Iweala over the
implementation of the budget. The minister is to appear before the
committee on Tuesday (today) though the Senate is on recess.
Clerk of the Committee, Innocent Mebiri, confirmed the meeting with the minister but he refused to give details about it.
“We have not summoned anybody; it is simply an invitation for the usual interaction,” Mebiri said.
The upper legislative chamber had said recently that it had no hand in the impeachment threat against the resident by the Reps.
