The leadership of the Federal House of Representatives at the weekend warned the Executive against heating the polity and called on President Goodluck Jonathan to sign the 2013 Appropriation bill without further delay.
Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, John Enoh gave the charge at a media briefing in Abuja, warning that the National Assembly may be compelled to invoke its constitutional powers to veto President Goodluck Jonathan’s power if he fails to assent to the 2013 budget at the expiration of the 30 days.
“We have no doubt on the constitutional powers we have, and so would not approach the court,” he said, adding that the federal legislature had been offered 30 days constitutionally to override the president’s veto on any bill, and quickly pointed out that by his calculation, however, the required 30 days had not expired on the 2013 Appropriation Bill.
The lawmaker expressed displeasure with the impact of the delay in signing the budget, but assured that the leadership of the House and the Senate are in discussion with the Presidency on how best to avert the crisis.
Expressing optimism that the Presidency will soon assent to the budget, he maintained that the National Assembly has no cause to approach any court under the guise of seeking interpretation of who owns the power of Appropriation, adding that the National Assembly has enormous constitutional powers to that effect.
While reacting to the media report that the budget has been returned to the National Assembly, Enoh dismissed the report and maintained that the 2013 budget bill is still with the Presidency.
“The channel of returning any bill, not just the Appropriation Bill, is usually formal, and that has not been done,” he said.
“The word padding (of budget) is not a civil language in a democracy. If some proposals in the opinion of standing committees are cut and redistributed to some other place where such may prevent a project from being abandoned, it would be agreed that there are adjustments for the benefit of Nigerians. My committee did not get any directive to pad the bill, and neither does it have the powers to do so.”
He also denied the assertion that the Executive is always reluctant to assent to the budget Bill over alleged inclusion of “un-implementable” constituency projects by members of the National Assembly, blaming such developments on deliberate lack of will by government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to develop a template for implementing such projects over the years.
“What is lacking is the will to do what is needed by the MDAs, and this is something that has come out of lingering issues of who have greater powers on the budget. This has been a repeated issue and what is expected is for the MDAs to develop a template for implementation of the projects.
Enoh also denied the allegation that the $79 per barrel of crude oil benchmark price was increased by the National Assembly from $75 per barrel, as proposed by the Executive with a view to increase the lawmakers’ allowances.
He noted that the annual budgetary provision for the National Assembly pegged at N150bn has not changed over the past few years, despite the realization of huge sum of money from sale of crude oil, as applicable to other agencies which enjoy first line charge including UBE, NDDC, INEC among others.
